The parents of 18 children face an agonising wait to discover how they died, after Essex police yesterday confirmed a major investigation involving a nurse employed by South Essex Community Care NHS Trust.
The investigation centres on the cases of nine boys and nine girls aged between eight weeks and 17 years who had been suffering terminal illnesses and would have been treated in hospital and at their homes.
Police could not rule out a decision to exhume bodies, so adding to the trauma of the parents of six of the children who were buried rather than cremated. A z20-strong police team began its investigation late last year, but police and health officials only advised the families of the ongoing investigation on Wednesday night, when it became clear the story was about to break in the Sun newspaper.
The nurse, believed to be in her 40s, was suspended from duty last September after health officials investigated a separate matter. Mr Patrick Geoghegan, chief executive of the South Essex Mental Health and Community Care Trust, said those inquiries had given rise to other concerns, at which point the police were called in.
The nurse has been suspended from her post and faces an interim suspension from the nursing register, although it was being stressed that she has not as yet been interviewed by police, or arrested or charged with any offence.
Mr Geoghegan said the police had been anxious that the families should not learn of the investigation from newspaper reports. Detectives were unhappy, however, that news of the investigation had broken, fearing their workload would be considerably increased as a result of calls from people concerned by newspaper reports. The local community health council said it was being "bombarded" with calls to a special helpline opened for worried relatives of young patients who have been treated in Essex.
Senior psychiatrists, counsellors and nurses have been drafted in to provide support to the families during what promises to be a protracted investigation. Det Supt Ian McNeill told reporters yesterday the inquiry had a long way to go and might result in no further action.
"It is an amazingly complex investigation," he said. "There is a whole host of different sources of information we have to look into. It is a major investigation."
He said the nurse at the centre of the inquiry had not been interviewed yet. "But that is not to say she will not be. At the moment we haven't gathered sufficient information to know what we are going to ask her."
Mr McNeill also said the inquiry could result in a number of different outcomes: "Children may have met their deaths from perhaps unnatural means. At the other end of the scale, we may uncover no evidence of any wrongdoing."
The nurse being investigated is a member of the Royal College of Nursing. An RCN spokeswoman said: "These are very serious and shocking allegations that need to be investigated thoroughly.
"The most important thing at the moment is to make sure that the families involved get the support they need."