Families call for hospital inquiry

The Government will this week come under further pressure to hold a public inquiry into deaths of elderly patients at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in the 1990s, as relatives and lawyers meet Norman Lamb MP, the Lib Dem health spokesman.

Failures by the policeand health regulators can be exposed only if there is an open and transparent inquiry, Mr Lamb said.

Relatives have spent years trying to access reports about hundreds of deaths at the Hampshire community hospital, which they believe may hold the key into what happened when Dr Jane Barton worked there from 1989- 2000.

Having received transcripts from Dr Barton's eight-week disciplinary hearing, officers are reinvestigating at least 12 deaths that occurred between 1996 and 1998.