Queues formed outside the offices of the Bristol Royal Infirmary inquiry as public hearings started on Tuesday morning.

The inquiry, chaired by Professor Ian Kennedy, is expected to take 18 months and cost up to£15m. It will take a wider look at issues surrounding the deaths of babies undergoing complex heart operations at the hospital than the General Medical Council hearing that resulted in two doctors being struck off and one censured last year.

But the inquiry started with representatives of the Bristol Royal Infirmary admitting that computer databases covering three years in the early 1980s were missing.