FORMER Bolton MP Brian Iddon has told how he and the organisation he was patron of tried to raise concerns about Gosport War Memorial Hospital only to be fobbed off.

Dr Iddon was approached by ALERT — Against Legalised Euthanasia, Research and Teaching — of which he was patron to try and highlight practices there in the late 1990s.

Today following a damning report, he has criticised the “establishment” for not listening to relatives and those who like him tried to raise concerns about the hospital.

The Gosport Independent Panel found that the lives of 456 people had been shortened by the prescribing and administering of opioids without medical justification at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital. The panel found that, over a 12-year period as clinical assistant, Dr Jane Barton was “responsible for the practice of prescribing which prevailed on the wards”.

Dr Iddon said: “This is the biggest scandal in my lifetime.

“I want to congratulate Gillian Mackenzie whose mother Gladys Richards died in the hospital and thank all the relatives who kept going and brought out the truth irrespective of the establishment desperate attempts to cover it up.

“My heartfelt sympathy goes to the relatives who suffered and are still suffering.”

Dr Iddon said relatives approached ALERT after they were unable to get answers from the authorities and he brought it up in Parliament.

He added: “I spoke to one of the relatives and took it to the department for health to Hazel Blears

“There were others who raised concerns too.

“There have been 12 reports into this and when I raised it as a Parliamentary question in 2002 I was told a report has been published, now 16 years later this. It has turned out worse than I imagined, even worse than Hillsborough, Grenfell, Shipman

“Why was the number of deaths not picked up and why was it not questioned about how much opiate was being ordered at what was a cottage hospital, it didn’t even have a trauma unit.

Dr Iddon added: “I was not the MP for the area and the organisation ALERT was not being listened to.

“Groups of people, even individuals are just not listened to.

“ As a MP I was able to tell which allegations were serious. If people are not listened to by the authorities it becomes a case of where do people go to be listened to. If they had listened to the relatives a lot of lives would have been saved.”

Dr Iddon said he is also concerned that many of the recommendations in Dame Janet Smith’s report of the Shipman affair have not been implemented.

One of the recommendations was that a second doctor scrutinises all death certificates to ensure “that nothing sinister is going on”.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the Gosport Independent Panel had identified a “catalogue of failings” by the authorities and apologised to the families who lost loved ones in the scandal.

He told MPs: “The police, working with the CPS and clinicians as necessary, will now carefully examine the new material in the report before determining their next steps and in particular whether criminal charges should now be brought.”