Peter Ashworth, the coroner for Derby, will open an inquest later this year into the suspicious deaths at the city’s Kingsway hospital.

He considers the matter so serious that he has written to the Department of Health asking for the inquest to be superseded by a judicial inquiry with powers to investigate practices at the hospital.

There is now increasing concern across Britain about the way hospitals appear to be hastening the deaths of elderly patients. Police in Leeds and Hampshire are also looking into similar cases.

The 11 patients, all men aged between 65 and 93, died in the Rowsley ward for the elderly at Kingsway. A review of the cases, ordered by the coroner, found evidence that their deaths may have been speeded up by withholding sufficient food.

The allegations first surfaced after Jayne Drew, a healthcare assistant, alerted the hospital managers after the deaths of Simon Smith, 74, and Arthur Boddice, 81, in the summer of 1997.

Families of fellow patients at the hospital claimed that some staff had become so upset at seeing elderly people being starved that they had taken it upon themselves to feed them secretly.

One relative has described how it was distressing to see his father go without food. Andrew Hughson said his 75- year-old father, also called Andrew, would vainly stretch his hand towards meals being delivered to other patients.

“We kept being told that feeding him would be bad for his general health, and he was too frail to tell us otherwise,” he said.

The inquest has been delayed by two investigations: one by the hospital, which found no evidence of wrongdoing, and the other by Derbyshire police, which sent a file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

The CPS ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute and now the police are awaiting the results of Ashworth’s inquest, which is expected to take three months.

After taking over the case, he sent 23 patients’ medical notes to Clare Royston, the clinical director of elderly people’s services at the Bedfordshire and Luton Community NHS trust. She concluded that 11 of the deaths may have been deliberately speeded up.

Yesterday Ashworth released a statement saying: “I am aware there is a possibility that issues might arise in the inquest which are not within my jurisdiction to consider.”

The health department has offered to hold a confidential internal inquiry into practices on the ward after the inquests. This has been rejected by the victims’ families because it would not have the same powers as a judicial inquiry.

“As a group we have rejected that offer,” said Simon Smith’s son Michael, a zoologist. “They have been arguing, but we and the coroner want a full public inquiry.

“At the time we thought my father’s treatment was consistent with what you would expect. Now it appears he was not being fed. We all want to know the precise causes of these deaths and we still haven’t had an answer.”

The Rowsley ward has since closed down, and the rest of the Victorian institution is scheduled for closure within three years. “We are not in a position to move things forward. We still don’t know how these people died and we still don’t know if there is a case to answer,” said Mike Shewan, chief executive of the Derbyshire Mental Health Services NHS Trust, which is responsible for Kingsway.

Ann Alexander, the solicitor acting for the bereaved families, said it was unfair that top QCs and junior counsel were being provided out of public funds to represent the health authority, medical and nursing staff at the inquest while no legal representation was being provided for the families.

Police are also investigating the unexpected deaths of 62 patients — all pensioners — who had been admitted for postoperative rehabilitation at the Gosport War Memorial hospital in Hampshire.

In Leeds, the death of Ethel Hall, 86, allegedly poisoned by a massive insulin injection, has sparked a police review of the records of 18 other elderly patients who died at the city’s General Infirmary.

A number of staff in both cases have been suspended during the investigations.

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