Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams apologized Tuesday on behalf of his and previous provincial governments during an appearance at a judicial inquiry into botched breast cancer testing.

"I want to apologize to the patients and their loved ones and their families for what happened here," he told the inquiry.

"There was no intention to hurt anybody under any circumstances."

Earlier in his testimony, Williams said his former health minister should have informed him of the ramifications.

Shortly after media reports emerged in late 2005, a high-ranking official within the Eastern Health authority told then-health minister John Ottenheimer that some patients were disqualified from potentially life-saving hormone therapy because their diagnostic tests were botched.

Commission counsel Bern Coffey asked Williams whether Ottenheimer should have told him about the conversation.

"That's obvious," Williams replied. "If the ramifications of what's going on are that people are dying as a result of the mistakes ... that's a significant change of circumstance that I would certainly liked to have been aware of."

NTV's Michael Connors, reporting from the inquiry, said Williams did qualify his comment about Ottenheimer.

"He said that he didn't know what advice Mr. Ottenheimer received from his officials and he can understand that based on that advice Mr. Ottenheimer would have made the decisions that he did," Connors said.

Williams has said he didn't know anything at all about the faulty tests until a local newspaper reported about them in October 2005.

He also said Tuesday he may have heard about the tests in an email a few days earlier but he doesn't remember reading it.

"It would have been late September, early October of 2005... when it first came to my knowledge and to my recollection," Williams testified.

An email shows two top advisers to the premier first became aware of a "major health matter" involving the questionable tests on July 19, 2005.

Since the testing scandal, Williams said he's instructed members of his government to bring urgent problems to his attention immediately.

"We have now sent an instruction," he said.

"I have indicated at cabinet to cabinet ministers, you know, if you have matters that you think are urgent, and need to be brought to my attention ... you need to come and tell me directly."

The commission has heard about inaccurate briefing notes circulated within the government about the testing problems that were inaccurate.

Williams said he's also made sure briefing notes are being reviewed to make sure they're as accurate as possible.

"If a briefing note is sent to me, then I rely on it and I rely on the information in it, and I act upon the information that is in the briefing note," he said.

The inquiry is probing how 400 patients received inaccurate results on their breast cancer tests and whether Eastern Health responded to patients in a timely and appropriate manner.

A final report with recommendations is expected by the end of February.

With files from The Canadian Press