A regional newspapers editor-in-chief is lodging a complaint with a local health trust over its handling of publicity following the deaths of two new mums days after they gave birth.

A Hampshire health trust took the unusual step of creating its own story by conducting its own interviews with the grieving families, getting pick-up pictures and then releasing them through the Press Association.

Now Ian Murray, the editor of the Southern Daily Echo based in Southampton, has written to the chief executive of Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust about how what he calls “a genuine attempt to ease the pain” seems to have backfired.

He is concerned that the Trust’s own press office was prepared to “sanitise” news coverage by “moulding the story” and claims it used the cover of lessening press intrusion to manage the story.

He said: “It strikes me as very strange that where hospitals usually hide behind the line of patient confidentiality to respond to enquires, here we have a health trust actually setting out to interview grieving relatives and picking up photographs of the deceased and then presenting them as a package to the press.

“There was no attempt to contact this paper, nor I understand local TV or radio.

“No doubt the trust thought that by giving the story to PA they would achieve wide coverage, but if they had truly wished to lessen the impact on the families of the dead women they should have issued their statement to all press.”

The ‘package’ appears to have been released to PA after enquiries from the Daily Mail, scuppering a scoop by the national.

An e-mail is understood to have been sent from the Trust to a weekly paper in Winchester minutes before the story was released.

Ian, who is also editor-in-chief of Newsquest’s papers in Hampshire, said: “Whereas I agree that relatives should always be protected from press intrusion wherever possible, this is a very important story. Two women who gave birth at the same hospital on the same day died from the same infection.

“The hospital claims this is just a coincidence, but is it?

“We owe it to the dead women and anyone else about to give birth at the hospital to air this story openly.

“Usually hospitals are stringent about patient confidentiality, yet here we have a hospital setting out to create a story, manage the quotes and the reaction from families and then ask press to stay away.”

The hospital is waiting for more test results to find out why the women died. Screening of staff has shown that none were carrying the infection Group A streptococcus, thought to be a possible cause of the tragedy.

Louise Halfpenny, from the Trust, said today: “It is a shame that the Daily Echo failed to pick up on this story first, either through their own contacts or via the coroner’s office, who released names of the deceased a week before the Mail ran the story.

“The Echo’s editor has written to our chief executive (albeit using the name of a chief executive who left us last spring) to express his displeasure.

“I had phoned our local Newsquest paper before the Mail had contacted me in order to discuss coverage, including how it would run in the Echo.

“The Daily Echo were supplied, as many other organisations were, with a press statement, family statements – arranged with permission via e-mail – and photographs from me.

“They had all these details on the day before the Daily Mail ran the story last Friday.”

Ian’s letter to health chief Chris Evennett said: “I believe that this is an unprecedented move and cannot recall any other circumstances when a Health Trust press office which is usually stringent concerning patient confidentiality has gone to such length to actually mould a story to the point of interviewing grieving relatives and arranging for pick-up photographs.

“Even if I take at face value the claim that this was done to protect the families of the dead women from unnecessary intrusion – something that has not been undertaken in prior circumstances – it is indefensible and inconsistent with this claim that the ‘package’ of information should only then be released to one news organisation.

“I am prepared to accept that this was no doubt a genuine attempt to ease the pain and suffering being felt by members of the two families concerned in the hope that by offering a complete package press intrusion could be kept to a minimum. However I feel certain also that with hindsight you would agree with me that any intentions were tainted by the manner in which this information was finally released.

“As a general note I must express my underlying concern that a body such as a Healthcare Trust should set about creating its own news story on such an important issue in what might be seen to be an attempt to manage news coverage of such a delicate matter.”