HSE orders review of deaths at Leas Cross

The Health Service Executive has reportedly ordered an independent investigation into a number of deaths at Leas Cross nursing home in north Co Dublin.

The home in Swords was taken over by the HSE earlier this year after a television documentary showed poorly-trained staff mistreating residents.

Reports this morning said the executive was planning to hire a professor in geriatric medicine to review all deaths at the home since 2001.

The move follows concerns about the deaths of several people, including seven public patients transferred from St Ita's Hospital who died within three to four months of arriving at Leas Cross.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has also claimed that a report on a Downs Syndrome man who died two weeks after being admitted to the home had highlighted "unusually high mortality rates".