A report released earlier this month has raised the spector of the horrific story, of a surgeon trusted with saving the lives of cancer patients, who carried out hundreds of unnecessary, unregulated operations.
It’s an incredibly difficult story to comprehend - even more so when it becomes apparent that opportunities to stop his medical negligence were missed, not once but repeatedly, by the people put there to ensure these things don’t happen. Not surprisingly, the case has sparked hundreds of NHS negligence claims.
Breast surgeon Ian Paterson, made the news after his suspension by the General Medical Council (GMC) in 2012. He was reported to the police after it came to light he had carryied out hundreds of cleavage sparing mastectomies - an unrecognised surgical procedure which leaves patients at a greater risk of the cancer returning. It’s also claimed that he carried out mastectomies on women who did not have breast cancer.
A report looking into the case was released in December last year, which highlighted the failures and indecisive leadership at the hospital which allowed him, despite previous warnings and investigations, to continue his clinical negligence. The report said senior managers at the trust did not respond effectively until 2007 and their response was neither sufficiently robust nor rigorous.
Earlier this month an additional report put together by Verita Consulting, said that between December 2007 and August 2011, private healthcare provider Spire missed opportunities to have monitored Paterson’s work and taken subsequent action to deal with it. It also found that there was poor communication between the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust (HEFT) and Spire about HEFT’s investigation into Paterson's practises within the NHS. In all, the report included a total of 15 recommendations for improving procedures.
Spire Healthcare’s chief executive, Rob Roger, said that the group gave a "full and unreserved apology to all of the patients and their families" for any distress they had suffered due to Paterson's medical negligence.
“Verita’s independent report makes for difficult reading and we intend to learn from this incident," he said.
The GMC said the procedure, which left a small amount of tissue for cosmetic reasons, breached national guidelines because it risked the return of cancer.
So far more than £3m in damages has been paid by the NHS to patients treated by Mr Paterson. In total there are 503 NHS negligence claims and it’s thought more than 1,000 women may have been affected by his surgery in both the private sector and the NHS.
A spokeswoman for the Medical Defence Union said Mr Paterson did not want to comment on the Spire report because of his duty of confidentiality and the ongoing investigations.
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