Hospital bosses have been forced to send out letters of apology and condolence after mistakenly inviting 84 dead former patients to become members of its foundation trust.

The error was made by Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as it embarked on a mass mailing to opt-in 50,000 patients in a bid to boost its membership numbers.

The trust, which runs Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke's Hospital, began recruiting members, who can be either members of the public, patients or staff, when it became one of the first foundation trusts in April, 2004.

Up until November last year, members had to actively ask to sign up, but this resulted in just 10,000 members.

In a bid to boost numbers, the trust - in consultation with its board of governors - decided to write to 50,000 of its patients to advise them they had been opted-in to becoming a member of the foundation trust unless they wrote back refusing the offer.

The trust expected a refusal rate of just four to five per cent based on the experiences of other foundation trusts which have adopted a similar recruitment method.

However, about 12,000 rejections have been received to date, a rejection rate of almost a quarter.

Because this rate was much higher than expected, the trust decided to review the responses to find out why so many had rejected membership.

It was found that 84 people had died and letters of apology and condolence have been sent out to relatives affected.

Others rejected membership but took the opportunity to make positive comments about the treatment they had received, a large number gave a general reason such as they were moving out of the area or they were already a member at Airedale and 39 contained adverse or negative comments about the trust.

Concerns have also been raised by governors about whether the 37,000 new members recruited by the opt-in system fully understand they are now members of the foundation trust.

As a result of these concerns a second opt-out clause will be included within a welcome letter being mailed out to new members this month.

A spokesman for the Trust said: "Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust recently contacted local people about becoming a member of our hospitals.

"The development of our services can affect the whole community and being a member gives people a greater opportunity to find out what's happening and have a real say on the future of their local hospitals.

"The foundation trust is delighted to be able to welcome 37,000 new members, who join our 10,000 existing members. We are extremely pleased to now have such a high number of members and look forward to communicating with them in the future.

"Regrettably, a very small number of letters sent out were addressed to people who have passed away. We have contacted relatives affected by this to apologise and have put measures in place to make sure this doesn't happen again.

"Some people did not want to be members but we did receive a very large number of positive comments from patients about the treatment received at our hospitals."

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