HELPLINES were set up for distraught relatives last night after it was revealed that serial killer Dr Harold Shipman may have murdered up to 297 patients.

The Greater Manchester GP, convicted last year of killing 15 women patients, had death rates way in excess of similar doctors, a Government-ordered audit of his work found.

It means he may have murdered one patient for every month of his 24-year career as a family doctor.

The report has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the police. But it seems unlikely that Shipman, serving 15 life terms in Frankland Prison, near Durham, will face any more charges.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn ordered the statistical review of Shipman's clinical practice after the GP, from Hyde, was convicted of the murders last January.

Professor Richard Baker, from the University of Leicester, compared death rates at Shipman's practices in Hyde and Todmorden, West Yorkshire, with those of ten other GPs working in the same areas at the same time.

Shipman worked in Todmorden between 1974 and 1976. He moved to Hyde in 1977 and stayed there until his arrest in 1998.

Prof Baker found that the GP had an excess of 297 deaths compared with the other doctors.

Shipman was also 25 times more likely to be present when a patient died than were other local GPs.

Of the 15 women he was convicted of murdering, 14 died in their homes and one died in Shipman's surgery - a highly unusual occurrence.

Shipman gave the mostly elderly women lethal doses of diamorphine, the medical term for heroin.

Prof Baker said: "I feel essentially rage, as a fellow professional, that someone betrayed the trust of people who were completely dependent on him."

The Government's Chief Medical Officer, Professor Liam Donaldson, said: "These are harrowing findings. It is horrific and inexplicable that this scale of activity was not detected earlier, and this is what we are now looking at."

Relatives of patients believed to have been murdered by Shipman yesterday called on the former GP to come clean about his crimes.

Jane Ashton Hibbert, whose grandmother, Hilda Hibbert,was thought to have been one of Shipman's victims, said: "It's just a very difficult time for a lot of the families. If he admitted his guilt, it would make it a lot better for a lot of families.

"Some of the families are in no-man's land. They just don't know - they are never going to know."

A public inquiry into the Shipman case is to begin this year after relatives of victims successfully challenged a Government decision to hold a private investigation.

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