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Last week, surgeon Ian Paterson was found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, in relation to 10 patients who had needless surgery at the Spire hospitals in the Midlands. 1 These cases were just a sample of a larger number of patients he had harmed while working in the NHS and privately. The Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust (HEFT) has already spent almost £18m ([euro]21m; $23m) on 265 claims for compensation; solicitors are bringing a civil class action on behalf of a further 350 women against both Spire Healthcare and the NHS; and it is thought there could be hundreds of other victims. 2 Paterson did breast surgery on over 4400 women at HEFT during his time there, including 1207 mastectomies, and an unknown number of procedures in the private sector. 3
In 2013 the trust published the report from an inquiry it commissioned from Sir Ian Kennedy. 4 It sets out how problems with Paterson's clinical performance were known about when he was appointed in 1998, how concerns were raised repeatedly from 2003 onwards, and why it took until 2011 for the organisation to suspend him and report him to the General Medical Council.
In 2014 Verita, an independent investigations consultancy, published a report they did for Spire Healthcare, 5 examining how the two Spire hospitals where he worked first became aware of concerns about his NHS practice in 2007 but took little action either to investigate or to restrict his private practice. It documents how the hospital directors and their medical advisory committees ignored repeated concerns and withdrew Paterson's practising privileges only in 2011 after he had been suspended by HEFT and had restrictions placed on his...