Another lethal failure to safeguard elderly

MILLIONS will be profoundly shocked by revelations about the conduct of Dr Jane Barton, who presided over a regime at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in which elderly patients were routinely given lethal doses of opiates without any clinical justification.

But amid the public’s anger over her horrifying (and surely criminal) wrongdoing, it is vital not to lose sight of the systemic scandal unearthed by the former Bishop of Liverpool and his panel.

The fact is that any organisation as vast as the NHS is bound to include rogue figures operating under a repellent amoral code of their own. This is why so many institutions exist to protect patients and their loved ones from the egregious abuses of the few.

Yet Bishop James Jones’s panel finds that in this case every single such authority – the General Medical Council, the hospital trust, the police, even the local MP – failed catastrophically in their public duty.

Worse still, they may even have conspired for decades to hush up what was going on – closing ranks and dismissing complaints from relatives and whistleblowers – while up to 650 were killed or had their lives shortened by inappropriate prescribing of opiates.

If Gosport were an isolated case, it would be appalling enough. But coming after such scandals as Mid-Staffordshire, in which 1,200 were found to have died of neglect, it suggests an institutional contempt for the elderly among health service employees and the watchdogs supposed to oversee them.

As the NHS marks its 70th birthday next month, staff and the public will rightly be celebrating a much-loved national institution. But as yesterday’s report so graphically underlines, this should also be an occasion for deep soul-searching over the service’s attitude to whistleblowers and the value of old people’s lives.