Dr Jane Barton, who is at the centre of a storm of outrage at hundreds of premature deaths at Gosport Memorial Hospital, is the daughter of one of Guernsey’s best-known clinicians and a former Jurat – Dr John Bulstrode, the founder of the Guernsey Society for Cancer Relief.
She is also married to an Old Elizabethan.
Dr Barton, 69, graduated from Oxford University in 1972 and was a clinical assistant and GP working at Gosport War Memorial Hospital between 1988 and 2000, a period during which 450 patients were found to have been given ‘dangerous doses’ of painkillers. A further 200 were also thought to have been affected.
A report into deaths at the hospital was published in 2013, but a subsequent report by an independent panel appeared this week.
Among its findings was that there was a ‘disregard for human life and a culture of shortening the lives of a large number of patients’.
‘There was an institutionalised regime of prescribing and administering “dangerous doses” of a hazardous combination of medication not clinically indicated or justified, with patients and relatives powerless in their relationship with professional staff.’
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that those involved could face criminal charges.
The deaths date back to Dr Barton’s time in the Department of Medicine for Elderly People.
There is no evidence she ever practised medicine in Guernsey.
The inquiry looked into more than 800 deaths and heard evidence from some 120 families who believed their relatives could have been killed.
It looked at hundreds of death certificates signed by Dr Barton between 1998 and 2000. ‘In summary, the panel found evidence of opioid use without appropriate clinical indication in 456 patients,’ said the report.
Past inquests had found that drugs prescribed by Dr Barton had contributed to six deaths, and an investigation was started in 2001.
Nine years later she was found guilty of serious professional misconduct but was not struck off.
In her testimony to the hearing she said her performance had been affected by long hours and intense pressure.
Inquests into 10 patients’ deaths had begun in March 2009.
Among these case studies are reports of a 79-year-old man who was admitted for bed sores but who was prescribed diamorphine – Heroin – among other drugs by Dr Barton.
‘Make comfortable. Give adequate analgesia. I am happy for nursing staff to confirm death,’ she wrote in the clinical notes. The patient died five days after being admitted to the hospital.
Another case was of a 78-year-old woman who went to the hospital for rehabilitation after a partial hip replacement. On one day she was reported as being ‘a little brighter’, but she died the following day.
Dr Barton had prescribed patches of the painkiller fentanyl, but the report notes that it could find no record that this drug was ‘clinically indicated’.
And a woman aged 88 who was reportedly admitted for rehabilitation after becoming ‘confused and aggressive’.
She passed away a month after being admitted. Among the drugs given to the patient, Dr Barton had prescribed morphine oral solution and the panel noted that she had not recorded her reasons for this at the time. Later she prescribed fentanyl patches: ‘The panel has not seen any record to confirm that fentanyl was clinically indicated,’ said the report.
The GMC Fitness to Practice hearing banned Dr Barton from prescribing opiates, but she was not struck off and allowed to continue as a GP.
She retired not long afterwards.
A copy of the Elizabeth College magazine The Elizabethan of January, 1972, records the engagement of ‘T. J. Barton (5576) of Nairobi to Jane Bulstrode of Les Mourants, St Andrew’s.’
According to records in The Greffe, they were married at St Martin’s Church on 16 December that year. On his retirement, her husband Timothy was a Commodore in the Royal Navy.
Dr Jane Barton’s brother, Professor Christopher Bulstrode, was awarded the CBE in the 2016 New Year’s Honours for ‘services to humanitarian medicine’ owing to his work with Doctors of the World.
Concerns were raised in relation to the GMC hearing against Dr Barton that Prof. Bulstrode was a member of the GMC Council from 2003 to 2008. But the GMC said he did not sit on any ‘fitness to practice’ panels and so was not involved in the case regarding Dr Barton.
