Victims of evil breast cancer surgeon to share £37m fund
VICTIMS of rogue breast cancer surgeon Ian Paterson will share in a £37million compensation package.
Around 750 private patients who had unnecessary surgery will benefit from the new fund.
Spire Healthcare, which runs private hospitals across the UK, yesterday announced it is contributing £27.2million to the fund which is intended to halt legal proceedings by patients against the group and account for any new claims.
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The company has also launched its own action against the NHS, claiming it failed to share its concerns about Paterson over a decade before he was brought to justice. A further £10million will be provided by co-defendants in the case, including Paterson’s insurers.
In April, the 59-year-old father-of-one was jailed for 20 years at Nottingham Crown Court after he was found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent.
A seven-week trial heard how he exaggerated or invented his patients’ risk of cancer to convince them to have surgery. One victim said she was left looking like “she had been in a car crash” after an “entirely unnecessary” mastectomy.
Paterson also claimed payments for more expensive procedures by putting incorrect codes on insurance forms.
Prosecutors said the extra money was part of his motivation, but a “God complex” had allowed him to revel in the misery he inflicted.
Paterson, who worked at two Spire hospitals in the West Midlands and for the NHS in Birmingham, shredded medical notes and claimed patients had “wrongly remembered” what he said during his consultations.
Prior to his trial Paterson and his physiotherapist wife Louise, 53, sold their £1.25million eightbedroom home in the Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston.
But they kept properties in Cardiff, Manchester and a holiday home in the US.
More than 500 of Paterson’s private patients had been due to take their case to the High Court next month.
Spire said the agreement was conditional on all parties agreeing, and the court approving, the terms of a court order.
It said the order “will conclude all current and known claims from patients against Spire and its co-defendants, Ian Paterson and Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust”.
Simon Gordon, interim chief executive at Spire, said: “We accept that better clinical governance in the private hospitals where Mr Paterson practised, as well as in his NHS trust, might have led to action being taken sooner. It is right that we have made a material contribution to the settlement announced.
“We have apologised unreservedly to Mr Paterson’s patients for their suffering.”
Lawyer Emma Doughty from Slater and Gordon, which represents more than 100 victims, said: “No financial settlement will heal the physical and mental scars inflicted on our clients, but they are relieved they have won their battle for justice.”
The NHS has paid more than £17million in compensation to 277 victims of Paterson while he worked at Heart of England.