In January 2001 it was annnounced that the High Court judge, Dame Janet Smith would chair an inquiry.
The enquiry was to be in three phases.
- The enquiry would consider how many patients were killed by Shipman, the means he used and the period over which they took place.
- The enquiry would examine the action of the statutory bodies and others involved in the investigations following the deaths.
- The enquiry would consider what steps should be taken to protect patients in the future.
Dame Smith's inquiry opened in June 2001.
It was expected to last two years and to review the deaths of 466 patients and possibly a further 152, including former patients in both Hyde and Tameside.
An interim report was expected to be published after Christmas 2001, but the number of cases considered rose to 827. The report was delayed until July 2002. Files were closed on 234 deaths believed to have been due to natural causes.
The inquiry resumed in March 2002 when stage one of phase two began by examining the police investigations. TV companies were given permission to broadcast footage of this stage.
The first findings of the inquiry were published on 19th July 2002.
The total number of people declared to have been murdered by Shipman was given as 215.
887 deaths were considered by the Inquiry. 394 of these Shipman was clearly seen not to have been involved in the deaths.
The other 493 were examined in detail and Dame Smith gave a written decision on each of them.
In 195 cases, she decided that the deaths had been natural.
In 215 cases, which include those for which Shipman was convicted, she concluded that Shipman had murdered them.
In 45 cases, she was unable to be certain, but strongly suspected Shipman might have killed his patient.
In 38 cases, she was unable to reach a conclusion due to the insufficiency of the evidence.
Shipman killed his first patient while in Todmorden. He continued to kill throughout his career. Whilst the first murder might be considered a case of "mercy-killing", the majority of the rest can in no way be considered thus. The rate at which he commited his crimes increased over time and it seems very likely that his botched forgery was, if only subconciously, a way of bringing things to an end.Full details can be found on the The Smith Inquiry's offical website.
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