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THE NHS has covered up thousands of ‘suspect’ deaths in hospitals, sparking calls for an urgent inquiry, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The expert who helped expose the Mid-Staffordshire hospitals scandal – where hundreds died due to poor care – says health chiefs have excluded up to 19,000 ‘unexpected’ deaths from official statistics in the past five years.

Professor Sir Brian Jarman says his shocking findings mean there are dozens of ‘potentially unsafe’ hospitals that should be investigated.

Last night, Lib Dems health spokesman Norman Lamb demanded that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt look into the claims.

Mr Lamb, a Health Minister in David Cameron’s Coalition Government, said: ‘If Professor Jarman is right, possible causes of unexpected deaths will go unnoticed, leaving NHS patients unacceptably at risk.’

Professor Jarman studied official hospital death rates with a method used as standard in health systems across Europe and the US.

He calculated that there were 32,810 ‘unexpected’ deaths in English hospitals over the past five years. But using the NHS’s preferred method, only 13,627 were classed as such – a difference of 19,183.

He said: ‘This is worrying because there might be serious clinical problems, and issues with patient safety, that are not being addressed.’