A British breast surgeon who operated needlessly on patients continued unchecked due to a culture of “avoidance and denial” in the institutions that should have stopped him, Reuters Health reports an inquiry has found. Ian Paterson was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2017 for carrying out unnecessary operations on 10 patients for personal gain. His sentence was increased to 20 years due to the seriousness of his crimes.
An independent inquiry has recommended that thousands of public and private sector patients be recalled to assess his surgery, and that there was an institutional failure to respond to “well-evidenced” complaints about his work.
“Our report finds that patients were let down over many years by multiple individual and organisational failures,” said Rt Rev Graham James, a retired Anglican bishop, who chaired the inquiry. “There was a culture of avoidance and denial, an alarming loss of corporate memory and an offloading of responsibility at every level,” he added.
“We accept that there were a number of missed opportunities to challenge Ian Paterson’s criminal behaviour when these incidents happened prior to his suspension in 2011,” said Justin Ash, CEO of Spire Healthcare.
The report says the inquiry took testimony from 211 of Paterson’s former patients or their relatives. Some made complaints which were not taken seriously, while others did not suspect anything was wrong until they heard about him on the news.
“There was a catalogue of failings, that resulted in harm to thousands of patients, causing devastation to countless lives,” Nadine Dorries, a junior health minister, told parliament, apologising for failings by the government and NHS.
Some of Paterson’s former patients gathered met for the first time, on a day when the inquiry praised their courage and recommended much stricter controls for private healthcare providers. The Guardian reports that James had met the patients earlier in the day, sharing the report with them and listening to their concerns.
In the hours that followed they talked about what the day meant to them and reflected on what might have happened if they had been listened to, and whether there was any chance for them now to start to close the door on many traumatic years.
The report says Tracey Smith, one of Paterson’s last patients, who had surgery in 2009 for a cyst that could have been treated by a prescription, said survivors were determined to make sure the inquiry’s recommendations were acted upon and any “co-conspirators” were brought to justice.
“I wouldn’t say that Paterson couldn’t happen again, because if the recommendations are ignored it easily could,” she said. “We are happy with the recommendations, but we’ve got to make sure they are put in place. We might have a couple of days to rest, but then we’ll be back fighting again.”
BBC News reports, meanwhile, that the deaths of 23 breast cancer patients in the UK who had been treated by Paterson are being reviewed. West Midlands Police has asked Birmingham and Solihull coroner Louise Hunt to look at a "random selection" of cases involving Ian Paterson, who was jailed in 2017 for 20 years for carrying out unnecessary cancer operations at Spire hospitals.
The review is looking at whether any patients died of unnatural causes due to "potentially substandard treatment".
The report says Paterson, from Altrincham, Greater Manchester, treated hundreds of patients in the private sector at Little Aston and Parkway Hospitals in the West Midlands, run by Spire Healthcare. He was jailed after being found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent.
The coroner said 23 cases had been "selected at random to investigate in more detail to try to understand whether the required legal threshold will be met". "The preliminary investigation is to identify whether there is any evidence that gives reason to suspect that any of the former patients of Mr Paterson have died an unnatural death as a result of his potentially substandard treatment," the report quotes a statement as saying.
[link url="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-health/avoidance-and-denial-let-uk-surgeon-carry-out-needless-operations-idUKKBN1ZY21T"]Full Reuters Health report[/link]
[link url="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/04/ian-paterson-patients-welcome-milestone-and-vow-to-fight-on"]Full report in The Guardian[/link]
[link url="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-51249448"]Full BBC News report[/link]