mbulance chiefs face renewed pressure to explain the loss of a key medical record relating to the death of Dr David Kelly after the investigating police force said it had no record of ever having received the document.
Bosses at South Central Ambulance NHS Trust were criticised last month when The Mail on Sunday revealed they could not find the patient report form (PRF) completed by paramedic Vanessa Hunt, who attended the scene of the former weapons inspector’s death in 2003.
A spokesman for the Trust claimed that they had probably handed over a copy of the form to Thames Valley Police at the time of its original investigation into Dr Kelly’s death.
But this version of events appears to have been undermined by a new disclosure obtained by The Mail on Sunday under the Freedom Of Information Act.
In response to a request about the PRF, Thames Valley Police said that it had
‘no record of such a form being completed, or having requested such a form or being in possession of such a form or copy’.
The admission will embarrass ambulance chiefs and increase demands for an inquest into the death.
Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP who has long maintained that 59-year-old Dr Kelly was murdered, said: ‘It is pretty extraordinary that a document of this importance appears to have vanished and neither body will take responsibility for it.’
Dr Michael Powers QC, who is leading a group of doctors campaigning for an inquest into Dr Kelly’s death, accused the Ambulance Trust of trying to shift the blame.
He said: ‘This document has either been intentionally or incompetently lost. It can only be one or the other.
‘The document is the closest thing to a full record of what the ambulance team at the scene saw and noted down. I would have expected such a form to have been filled out and to have been kept, particularly given national and international interest in the case.’
All ambulance crews have to fill out a PRF for every call-out. The details recorded include pulse rate, blood pressure and skin condition, the timing and location of an incident, and any action taken.
The information can play a key role at an inquest. Paramedics giving
evidence normally rely on the PRF.
The South Central Ambulance NHS Trust insists the form was completed in accordance with the rules.
At the time of the death, Ms Hunt and her colleague Dave Bartlett, who also attended the scene in woods near Dr Kelly’s home, worked for Oxfordshire Ambulance Trust, which has since merged with three others to form South Central Ambulance Trust.
Mr Bartlett’s claim in The Mail on Sunday last month that Dr Kelly’s body had been moved added to the increasing demand for an inquest.
The two paramedics lifted Dr Kelly’s eyelids, felt for a pulse and applied a heart monitor. These actions should all have been recorded on the PRF.
A copy of the document was not submitted to Lord Hutton’s inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death. Lord Hutton’s 2004 report, which concluded that Dr Kelly slit his wrists to kill himself, was branded a whitewash by critics who pointed to the lack of blood at the scene and other unanswered questions.
A spokesman for the Trust last night said it stood by its previous statements on the PRF and that it could not comment further.
A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said they had never received a copy of the form.
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