Doctors and nurses who make 'honest mistakes' while treating patients should not face prosecution, Jeremy Hunt said last night.

The Health Secretary accepted the main findings of a review into the use of gross negligence manslaughter charges for health workers amid concerns that fear of criminal proceedings was having a 'chilling effect' on the medical profession.

He said new rules will allow medical staff to learn from their errors without fear of prosecution.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said that those who make 'honest mistakes' while treating patients should not face prosecution

But Mr Hunt also announced that, for the first time, every death in the NHS will be scrutinised by a new regime of 'medical examiners'. It means families should find it easier to receive answers about the death of a loved one.

The Health Secretary ordered the inquiry by eminent surgeon Professor Sir Norman Williams in February, after the outcry over the treatment of Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba.

How public outcry followed junior doctor being struck off over sepsis death of boy Jack Adcock The death of six-year-old Jack Adcock from sepsis led to a public outcry after a junior doctor was struck off. Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter over mistakes she admitted making while treating the boy at Leicester Royal Infirmary in 2011. Jack, who had Down’s Syndrome and a heart condition, was admitted with diarrhoea, vomiting and breathing difficulties. Hadiza Bawa-Garba Dr Bawa-Garba had recently returned from maternity leave and was alone in charge of the emergency department and acute children’s assessment unit. She admitted to making mistakes – including failing to ask a consultant to review Jack’s condition, confusing him with another patient and briefly stopping resuscitation attempts, although the latter was found not to have contributed to his death. She received a two-year suspended sentence for gross negligent manslaughter in 2015. Nicola and Victor Adcock, parents of Jack But it prompted a furious nationwide outcry by doctors who claimed many of the errors made were ‘systemic failures’ at the hospital, which was understaffed and experiencing delays to test results on the day Jack died. Dr Bawa-Garba has now been granted an appeal, which will be heard before the end of July. Advertisement

The trainee paediatrician was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence in 2015 over the death of Jack Adcock, six, at Leicester Royal Infirmary after he developed sepsis in 2011.

A tribunal ruled she should remain on the medical register despite the conviction but in January the General Medical Council succeeded in getting her struck off after taking the case to the High Court.

The GMC's actions angered many doctors, who complained that important issues raised by the case – including dangerous levels of understaffing and failures of IT systems – had been ignored.

In response, Mr Hunt said he would strip the GMC of the right to appeal against tribunal rulings.

Sir Norman's report, published today, calls for a 'clearer understanding' of when proceedings for gross negligence manslaughter should be brought in healthcare so practitioners are reassured that they will apply only in cases of 'very poor performance' and not 'honest mistakes'.

It also calls for the removal of the GMC's power to appeal against rulings of the Medical Practitioners' Tribunal Service, with challenges restricted to the Professional Standards Authority.

While accepting the findings, Mr Hunt has sought to reassure patients and their families that there will be improved scrutiny of deaths in the NHS.

He will introduce a system of medical examiners – senior doctors who will look at all patient deaths that are not referred to a coroner.

Officials said the changes would mean bereaved families will get more information about the circumstances of their loved ones' deaths while more data would be shared across the NHS to help prevent avoidable deaths.

Mr Hunt said: 'When something goes tragically wrong in healthcare, the best apology to grieving families is to guarantee that no one will experience that same heartache again.

'I was deeply concerned about the unintended chilling effect on clinicians' ability to learn from mistakes following recent court rulings, and the actions from this authoritative review will help us promise them that the NHS will support them to learn, rather than seek to blame.'

Sir Norman said his recommendations would support a 'just and learning culture' in healthcare.

'A clearer understanding of the bar for gross negligence manslaughter in law should lead to fewer criminal investigations which are limited to just those rare cases where an individual's performance is so 'truly exceptionally bad' that it requires a criminal sanction,' he said.

'This clarity together with an understanding by the investigatory authorities as to the complexity of modern healthcare in which the individual operates should help to dispel the real fear felt by healthcare professionals who are concerned that in the well-intentioned discharge of their duty they may be subject to criminal or regulatory processes.'