A fresh criminal investigation has been launched into the Gosport hospital scandal, where hundreds of patients died after being given powerful painkillers.

The care provided to patients who died at the Hampshire hospital between 1987 and 2001 will be the focus of the probe, Kent Police said in a statement on Tuesday.

There have been three previous investigations into deaths at the hospital.

More than 450 elderly patients had their lives shortened, while another 200 were “probably” similarly given opioids between 1989 and 2000 without medical justification, according to the Gosport Independent Panel report released in June.

A team lead by Assistant Chief Constable Nick Downing had been assessing the panel’s findings to establish if there was sufficient new evidence to support a further police investigation.

Families were told there would be a fresh probe shortly before the announcement was made.

Mr Downing said on Tuesday: “The families of those affected by the events at Gosport War Memorial Hospital are at the heart of everything we do, and I hope the news that we will now be carrying out a full investigation is of some comfort to them.

“This investigation is not about numbers, it is about people – specifically those who died at the hospital and the loved ones they have left behind.”

He added: “It was therefore important for us to carry out an initial assessment of the materials obtained by the Gosport Independent Panel to establish if it contained sufficient new information that has not already been submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

Mr Downing said police will be meeting with relatives of those who died on a one-to-one basis, where they will be invited to give statements on their own experiences with the hospital.

Relatives of the 456 elderly people who died demanded criminal charges were brought against those reponsible last year.

An independent inquiry found that “there was a disregard for human life and a culture of shortening the lives of a large number of patients by prescribing and administering dangerous doses of a hazardous combination of medication not clinically indicated or justified”.

Bridget Reeves’ 88-year-old grandmother Elsie Devine was one of those who died.

Ms Reeves organised a petition called for urgent action and accusing the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox of dragging his feet over the matter.

It was signed by more than 100,000 people and was handed into Downing Street.

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