A REPORT into the way the NHS handled complaints against two disgraced North Yorkshire psychiatrists looks set to be published by July.

Its publication may come about the time of the expected release from jail of one of the former consultants, Michael Haslam.

The inquiry was ordered by the then Health Secretary Alan Milburn in 2001 after William Kerr, of Easingwold, had been found by a jury at a hearing-of-fact to have indecently assaulted a former patient.

It was intended to examine how the health service had responded when complaints were made against Kerr and his colleague Haslam, of Crayke, near Easingwold. The inquiry was delayed after Haslam was arrested on suspicion of assaulting former patients. He was convicted in 2003 and is currently serving a three-year sentence for indecently assaulting three women patients in the 1980s. It is understood he will be due for release this summer.

Haslam left prison one day last summer to attend one day of the inquiry hearings at York's Hilton Hotel. Accompanied by prison officers, he gave evidence and answered questions from counsel.

Other witnesses included former York psychiatrist and York NHS Trust chief executive Peter Kennedy and Britain's Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, who compiled a report on Haslam's activities in 1997, when he was regional director of the NHS.

The hearings were held behind closed doors but the inquiry report, likely to contain recommendations on how NHS complaints procedures could be improved, is to be published in full.

An inquiry spokesman said today it was hoped the report would be submitted to the Secretary of State by late next month or early July.

It was possible it could then be published in July, but he stressed that the publication date would be down to the Department of Health.

He understood that unless the report was published by July 21, when MPs rise for the summer recess, its publication might be delayed until members returned to Westminster in October.

Updated: 10:31 Thursday, May 26, 2005