A MALE nurse has been arrested by police investigating the poisoning of patients at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport, northwest England.
The 46-year-old suspect was arrested at his home in Stockport Thursday (local time).
The arrest came as it was revealed that the death of an 82-year-old man on New Year’s Eve was also being investigated as his medicines were contaminated.
His is now the fourth death being investigated by detectives working on the inquiry.
After the contamination of saline drips at the hospital in June and July last year, Arnold Lancaster, 71, Tracey Arden, 44, and Alfred Derek Weaver, 83, all died.
Another 16 patients at the hospital are believed to have been poisoned but survived.
Police believe saline was deliberately injected with insulin.
The suspect is being held on suspicion of unlawfully administering a noxious substance, or poison, after it was found that medical records had been tampered with on Monday.
Sources close to the investigation said the arrest forms part of a separate probe to the one looking at the tampering of saline drips last year.
As yet there is no link between the two investigations, sources said, but the suspect worked on the same wards at the same time the patients were poisoned last summer.
The latest stage in the six-month police probe comes after nurse Rebecca Leighton was arrested on suspicion of murder but released without charge.
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