Health officials apologised today to the parents of 17 children who died in early infancy for letters telling them their sons and daughters were due to start school.

One devastated East Sussex mother said of the error: "The loss is always going to be there - I don't need it thrown in my face."

The error happened when East Sussex County Council asked health chiefs for a list of children born in the Hastings area between September 1998 and 1999.

Hastings and St Leonards Primary Care Trust passed the request to McKesson, the company which manages the computer system holding the information.

The list McKesson passed to the education department, which sent out the letters, included the 17 children who were stillborn or died in early infancy.

Julia Mitchell, 28, of Harkness Drive, Hastings, said of the letter she received: "At first I thought it was a typing error. I thought they were talking about my two-and-a-half year old daughter."

She added: "I've been putting on a brave face but the loss is always going to be there. I don't need it thrown in my face that my dead baby should be starting school now."

In a statement today the Primary Care Trust said it was "deeply sorry for the distress caused to parents and guardians who received a letter in error from East Sussex County Council's education department about school admission."

A statement from McKesson said: "Due to human error, a report was produced from the McKesson child health computer system that selected some inappropriate information, specifically the records of a number of deceased children.

"This unfortunate incident is unprecedented in McKesson's 20-year history of providing child health computer systems to the NHS.

"To prevent any occurrence of this situation in the future, McKesson has fully reviewed its internal control procedures for this type of information request and has taken steps to ensure this does not happen again."

The company said it apologised unreservedly to all concerned, particularly the families of the deceased children.