A GP who injected a 22-year-old woman with diamorphine to ease her severe migraine has admitted at an inquest that "something he did" caused her death.

Jill Griffiths died following a consultation with Dr Tom White at Skipton General Hospital, North Yorkshire, on October 12 last year.

The hearing was told she might have been given up to six times the accepted dose.

At the inquest in Skipton, Dr White was asked whether he accepted he had given Miss Griffiths a stronger dose of the drug than he recalled.

Doctor's realisation

He said: "I realise and accept that what I thought I was giving with a view to relieving pain, in fact was not what I probably gave.

"I've had to live with the realisation that something that I did caused somebody's death."

At that point, Miss Griffiths's mother Denise, became extremely emotional and had to leave the court accompanied by a number of members of her family.

Dr White, who has been a GP in Skipton for 12 years, was working as an emergency on-call GP when he treated Miss Griffiths for a severe migraine which had not responded to prescription medicine.

Something 'effective'

He told the hearing how he had decided to give the diamorphine because he was worried that Miss Griffiths would not absorb an oral drug because of her vomiting and he wanted her to sleep.

He said: "This was somebody who was in a great deal of pain which had gone on for quite a long period of time.

"I was aware that migraines could last two to three days.

"There was no indication that this was coming to a close.

"I wanted to do something which I felt would be effective.

Different option

"I felt also that I wanted to do something that would probably give a bit of sedation because I felt that sleep would help to bring the migraine to an end."

Asked how many times he had administered diamorphine to ease severe migraines before, he said: "I do not know precisely, but I think it may have been on one or two occasions."

Headache expert Dr Timothy Steiner and Professor Timothy van Zwanenberg, the head of GP training at Newcastle University, both told the hearing that using diamorphine to treat chronic migraine was unusual but not unknown.

Both said they would have opted for a different drug.

On Thursday the inquest was told a post mortem examination showed Miss Griffiths, a building society worker, died from diamorphine poisoning.