TWENTY-five GPs are among 100 or more witnesses expected to give evidence at a health service inquiry which got under way yesterday.

The GPs, along with about 25 former patients, will appear at an inquiry into the way complaints against two psychiatrists were handled by the NHS.

Former patients claim that complaints against North Yorkshire psychiatrists, Dr Michael Haslam and Dr William Kerr, were not taken seriously by the NHS.

The GPs, along with about 50 NHS employees, will be asked to to answer questions about the way complaints were handled.

Yesterday, a group of former patients, including Kathy Haq, 54, from Sunderland, gathered outside the Hilton Hotel, in York, to demonstrate their continuing concerns.

Mrs Haq said: "We hope that lessons will be learnt from what happened within North Yorkshire Psychiatric Service. Patients must be protected from doctors."

She said she would be pressing Health Secretary John Reid to publish the inquiry's report as soon as possible.

Dr Haslam is serving a seven-year prison sentence after he was convicted at Leeds Crown Court last year of raping a patient and indecently assaulting two others in hospitals in York in the 1980s.

At a fact-finding hearing in 2000, a York Crown Court jury found Dr Kerr guilty of indecently assaulting a patient at a Ripon hospital in 1986. He was found incapable of being tried on other charges due to illness.

Inquiry chairman Nigel Pleming QC stressed that the inquiry was not intended to assess the guilt of anyone, but to look at why, as issues arose, they were not treated as complaints, and when complaints were made, why they were not dealt with appropriately.

Mr Pleming has indicated that he may want to hear evidence from Dr Haslam during the hearing.

To do this, Dr Haslam would have to be brought from prison to appear before the inquiry.

Dr Kerr is not expected to take part in the inquiry because of his illness.

Unlike a similar inquiry into the disgraced Northallerton surgeon Richard Neale, many of the former patients who made complaints against Drs Haslam and Kerr are taking part in the inquiry.

Oral evidence is expected to continue until September with a break in August.