A bombshell Whitehall email trail shows how senior health civil servants tried to cover up the Gosport hospital deaths scandal.
They reveal for the first time how:-
- Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's Lib Dem deputy Norman Lamb was kept out of the loop to stop him kicking up a fuss.
- The Department of Health attempted to block a public inquiry into the 456 patients whose lives were allegedly shortened by prescribed painkillers.
- Bishop James Jones’ investigation published last week only went ahead because Mr Lamb insisted.
A report into suspected premature deaths at Gosport War Memorial Hospital, Hants between 1989 to 2000 was completed in 2003 under clinician Professor Richard Baker.
But shamefully it was kept under wraps and not published for ten years during which time Mr Lamb had campaigned vigorously to get at the truth.
The official reason given for delay was legal advice. But Mr Lamb now says: “Whoever received that document in 2003 should have surely said to themselves, ‘this is unbelievable, we must pursue this.’”
In 2013 Mr Lamb was the minister responsible for end of life care in David Cameron ’s coalition government.
But with Parliament in recess the MP was on a two week holiday in France. He suspects his absence was deliberately chosen for the report’s publication.
It was only emailed to him the day before being made public on 2nd August, and the responsibility for handling it passed to another health minister, Earl Howe.
Mr Lamb says the peer was just the duty minister at the time, and had not been given the full background either. But that did not stop the usually mild-mannered Care minister from hitting the roof.
A covering note from Mr Lamb’s private secretary said the Government planned to “resist any calls for a public inquiry.”
It added: “I’ve stressed your concern that we do all we can to help the families involved feel justice has been done and get some sense of closure.
“Officials appreciate this concern, but advise that a public inquiry would be very unlikely to reach any conclusive verdict and would not be worthwhile.”
But Mr Lamb demanded that the section blocking a public inquiry be deleted.
He told the Sunday Mirror: “They would have closed the whole thing down. The civil servants knew what the report said.
“Something was very wrong. Anyone reading it would have come to the conclusion that we must have a thorough inquiry.
“That decision not to investigate raises the question of motivation. I was left feeling they may have been attempting a cover-up.
“I was incandescent with anger. I’d made a request to see the report and it was not forthcoming.”
The Baker report said: “Only the detailed investigation of individual cases, in which accounts of witnesses as well as documentary evidence are considered, can conclude whether lives were shortened by the almost routine use of opiates before death.
“In a smaller number of cases, the practice will be found to have shortened the lives of people who would have had a good chance of surviving.”
Mr Lamb emailed: “If I was a relative I would regard that as pretty serious - ie that my mum has been killed!
“I don’t think the press notice is anywhere near sufficient. No expression of regret, remorse for this awful treatment.”
Mr Lamb said the families of victims should be invited in to meet him. But they had to wait a futher five years for yet another report for their concerns to begin to be addressed.
And there are now fears the practice of giving opiates to shorten life may be more widespread.
In another email Mr Lamb wrote to officials: “I am extremely unhappy with this. I have made my concerns VERY clear.
“Officials have not let me see the Baker report despite them knowing of my real interest.
“I feel that officials are deliberately doing this whilst I’m away.”
Mr Lamb went to Permanent Secretary, Dame Una O’Brien, the most senior civil servant in the Department, and opposition to a public inquiry was dropped.
He was also concerned that a mix up over email addresses which delayed the Baker report getting to him may have been deliberate.
He wrote to his private secretary: “I am extremely concerned that the email to you was wrongly addressed.
“I am keen to avoid being a conspiracy theorist but I find this extremely odd.”