A North-East hospital has been criticised after the deaths of eleven psychiatric patients.

An independent probe was launched after the deaths of two patients under the care of Cherry Knowle Hospital in Ryhope, Sunderland between 1999-2000.

During the two year period nine other deaths and two serious injuries were also reported.

While the review panel found no evidence of abuse they criticised the trust for lack of communication, ineffective teamwork and low staffing levels. Although the report does not give details of any of the patients or how they died it known that one of them was Atul Bhatt, 37, who died after crashing more than 15ft from the window of a sheltered home on July 10, 1999.

Atul Bhatt was being cared for at Houghton le Spring under the supervision of doctors at Cherry Knowle.

An inquest into his death recorded an open verdict after it was revealed a safety device on his bedroom window was faulty and that care staff had failed to report his deteriorating mental state to hospital doctors.

Since his death, Mr Atul's brother Anil, 44, a lawyer, mother Kusum, 65, a counsellor and father Jitendra, 72, a retired lecturer, have spent £50,000 on a private investigation to find out what has happened.

Another patient was Keven Knowles, 29, who died after suffering serious burns.

His mother, June, of Millfield, Sunderland, said: "We wanted answers but we haven't got them from this report."

The NHS independent report said: "The system for monitoring and auditing the service were inadequate and the organisation had a false level of confidence in terms of how it perceived its own performance.

"Standards of overall care were found to be adequate, however several incidents highlighted that when things had gone wrong or when patients were physically hurt the manner in which staff responded to questions by carers generally left the carers with heightened levels of anxiety and mistrust rather than feeling reassured.

"From the evidence reviewed it seemed that the lack of effective communication at many levels resulted in carers feeling isolated.

"In effect, all those interviewed clearly identified that the lack of effective communication left them feeling that the trust had something to hide."

Some of the families of the dead patients are planning to take legal action.