Jeremy Hunt has ordered an urgent probe into the use of faulty syringe pumps across the NHS amid concerns their role in the Gosport deaths scandal was suppressed.

A whistleblower has alleged thousands of elderly patients may have been killed by the opioid-delivering devices and that the official Gosport inquiry deliberately overlooked their use to avoid a national scandal.

The Graseby MS 16A and MS 26 pumps, which had a “booster” switch but no “stop” button, were banned in the NHS from 2015, two decades after a safety watchdog first raised concerns.

But yesterday the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) admitted officials have been told to “urgently look into this matter to ensure no unsafe devices of this kind are being used”.

Designed in the 1970s, the battery-powered “drivers” were designed to deliver drugs automatically, relieving the need for clinicians to administer multiple injections.

As of 2001, around 40,000 devices were being used in up to 61 per cent of palliative care units, however doctors have described them as “really dangerous” because they allow the accidental or deliberate rapid infusion of dangerous drugs into the bloodstream.

While one model is set to deliver opioids over 24 hours, the other, which looks identical, performs the same task in 60 minutes, meaning patients risk being given a day’s worth of drugs in just one hour.