Hospital deaths probe too slow, say families

Relatives of patients who died at Gosport War Memorial Hospital have voiced their frustration at the length of time a police investigation into the deaths is taking.

In 2018, an independent panel found at least 456 patients died after being given powerful opioid painkillers inappropriately between 1989 and 2000.

A new criminal investigation "Operation Magenta", led by Kent Police, began in 2019. The force said officers were working as "quickly and thoroughly as possible".

Linda Lacey, whose father Vernon Gregory died at the Hampshire hospital after going in for respite care, said this week: "We need to see some results, a lot of us are getting frustrated."

Ms Lacey was among more than 100 relatives who attended a family forum in Fareham on Wednesday, organised by police to update relatives.

Speaking afterwards, she said: "The police have got a very hard job on their hands, it is complex, but I just feel it could be moved along faster."

Operation Magenta was set up in the wake of the Gosport Independent Panel, which found that there was "a culture of shortening lives" and an "institutionalised regime" of prescribing and administering "dangerous" amounts of medication that was not clinically justified.

The panel found that three previous investigations by Hampshire police had "failed to get to the bottom of what happened".

Robert Logan's father Robert Wilson died in 1998, aged 74, at Gosport War Memorial Hospital while recuperating from a broken shoulder.

Mr Logan said he felt the progress of the investigation was "very slow" and it was sometimes "difficult to understand why".

He added: "We must go along with it because it is the only investigation but, in terms of slowness, I am now almost the same age now as my father was when he died."

Operation Magenta is an independent police investigation, with officers and staff drawn from across the UK, excluding Hampshire.

The investigation, directed and controlled by Kent Police, is looking at more than 750 deaths between 1987 and 2001.

Detectives told families previously they have identified 29 suspects. Police said 24 were suspected of alleged gross negligence manslaughter and five of alleged health and safety offences.

Last year, the process of submitting case files to the Crown Prosecution Service for charging consideration began. There have been no arrests to date.

Tim Wellstead said he had been seeking justice for his father Walter Wellstead for 27 years.

"I am nowhere near getting any idea as to when it is going to end," he said after the family forum.

"I have learnt nothing from today that I did not already know. It seems a waste of time for me to carry on doing it but I have got to for my dad."

Deputy Chief Constable Neil Jerome, of Operation Magenta, said: "The independent investigation into deaths at Gosport War Memorial Hospital is one of the largest and most complex of its nature in the history of UK policing."

He said the team, made up of serving and retired detectives, had so far assessed more than three million pages of documents.

"Family members and the general public can be confident we are working as quickly and thoroughly as possible to ensure Operation Magenta is the decisive police investigation into the deaths at Gosport War Memorial Hospital," he said.

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