Internal reviews by a Tasmanian hospital into a pedophile nurse were misleading and an allegation of historical abuse known to management was omitted and not escalated, an inquiry has been told.
James Geoffrey Griffin died by suicide in October 2019 after being charged with multiple child sexual abuse offences.
An inquiry into child sexual abuse has been told of "catastrophic failures" in Launceston General Hospital's handling of complaints against Griffin, who worked on the children's ward for almost two decades.
Hospital human resources manager, James Bellinger, was in November 2019 called by a police officer who told him about an abuse disclosure made years earlier against Griffin by Kylie Pearn.
Ms Pearn, who worked alongside Griffin, has told the inquiry she disclosed to hospital human resources in 2011 she had been abused by Griffin as a child.
She said she was told nothing could be done without a conviction.
Mr Bellinger told the inquiry he didn't reference Ms Pearn's disclosure in briefings to the government department responsible for the hospital as part of investigations into Griffin following his death.
Mr Bellinger also didn't reference the disclosure in a subsequent internal review, or in information provided to the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation or the state's Integrity Commission.
He denied deliberately covering up information.
"My involvement may not have been adequate. Cover up implies there was an intent," he said on Thursday.
"It may not have been exhaustive enough but there was not an intent to bury it. I accept more should have been done."
He agreed the information he escalated to the department about Griffin was misleading.
The inquiry has previously been told Mr Bellinger may been at the meeting with Ms Pearn in 2011. He claims to have no recollection of the meeting.
A former boss of the hospital earlier told the inquiry he didn't launch an investigation into a historical child sexual abuse claim because he believed the matter was "too old".
Stephen Ayre, head of the facility from 2004 to 2008, said he handled a complaint in 2005 made by Ben Felton, who alleged he was sexually assaulted by a nurse known as "George" in 1989.
Dr Ayre said he formed the view Mr Felton had been assaulted but said he didn't consider launching a fresh investigation into the matter.
"I had the information there was no police information that we were able to use. There was no other information that was able to be found," he told the inquiry.
"It would be the verbal recollections et cetera of people from 1989 essentially."
Dr Ayre conceded he didn't know whether the hospital had completed an investigation in 1989 as there was "no documentation he could access".
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Elizabeth Bennett SC, asked Dr Ayre whether he considered the claim to be too old.
"That would have been my assessment at the time," he replied.
Mr Felton previously said he was abused by a nurse at the hospital as a 13-year-old and reported the matter to hospital officials at the time but never heard anything back.
He said he went back to the hospital for answers in 2003.
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