NHS Tayside’s deputy chief executive Gerry Marr told the Tele today that the health authority has just been asked to submit documentation surrounding the fatal outbreak in ward 31 at Ninewells to Lord MacLean’s inquiry.

They have been given to the end of this month to comply.

The inquiry was set up initially to look at a major outbreak of C.diff at Vale of Leven hospital in Dunbartonshire, which involved 55 people, 18 of whom died.

The terms of that inquiry were recently extended to include the outbreak at Ninewells Hospital, but Lord MacLean made clear that he would not be looking at the cause of the Ninewells outbreak, but only how the outbreak was handled.

Earlier this week, Dundee-based MSP Marlyn Glen called for NHS Tayside to release the results of an internal probe into the outbreak at Ninewells.

At the time, NHS Tayside said they had not been asked to submit documents or send witnesses to Lord MacLean’s inquiry.

“We have now been asked to submit all of our documentation to the public inquiry and we have to do that by February 27,” said Mr Marr today.

He said that would include the outbreak report that NHS Tayside prepares following every C.diff outbreak.

“It is my understanding that all of these documents will be placed in the public domain at a certain point in time.

“We have been asked to be part of the inquiry and help understand the lessons to be learned.”

Asked if he would release the internal reports to the Tele and answer the call for them to be made public, Mr Marr said “The appropriate place for that to emerge is through the inquiry process.”

The deputy chief executive said that if NHS Tayside employees were asked to attend as witnesses in the inquiry’s public sessions, which are due to start in June, they would attend.

But he expected that any questioning would be narrowed to lessons learned as the extension to include Ninewells in the inquiry was under a very specific term of reference, which did not include an investigation into the Ninewells deaths by the inquiry.