A LONG-AWAITED report into the way the NHS handled complaints against two disgraced North Yorkshire psychiatrists is set to be published next Monday.

Its publication - which is still subject to Parliamentary approval - comes only weeks after one of the consultants, Michael Haslam, of Crayke, near Easingwold, was released from jail.

It is not known whether he will be entitled to attend a press conference due to be held at the Royal York Hotel, when some former patients are expected to be present.

An inquiry spokesman said that Haslam was released on licence on June 14, and it would depend on the terms of the licence whether or not he would be able - if he wished- to be there.

Haslam is serving a three-year sentence for indecently assaulting three women patients in the 1980s.

The inquiry was ordered in 2001 by the then Health Secretary Alan Milburn after the other doctor, Williem Kerr, of Easingwold, had been found by a jury at a hearing-of-fact to have indecently assaulted a former patient.

Mr Milburn wanted the inquiry to investigate how the health service responded after former patients made complaints against the two doctors, both of whom are now retired.

The inquiry was delayed by Haslam's arrest and subsequent trial, but finally got under way last year with a series of hearings at York's Hilton Hotel.

On one occasion, Haslam was accompanied by prison officers to attend the hearing, give evidence and answer questions from counsel.

Key witnesses included Britain's Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, who compiled a report into Haslam's activities in 1997 when he was regional director of the NHS.

The hearings all took place behind closed doors, but the Health Secretary promised in 2001 that the report would be published in full.

The conclusions are being kept tightly under wraps, but the report - understood to be a very lengthy document - is expected to contain criticisms of the complaints procedures in the 1970s and 80s, and recommendations on how procedures should be improved now.

One of Kerr's former patients, Kathy Haq, who is also a spokeswoman for a number of other ex-patients, said today of the report: "I hope that the truth will finally be told. Having listened to the inquiry, we realised there was a lot more to it than we already knew.

"Hopefully, recommendations will be made and acted on to ensure this never happens again."

Updated: 10:45 Thursday, July 14, 2005