Breast cancer care ‘cover-up’ claims

NHS Tayside is at the centre of bombshell cover-up claims over its handling of a breast cancer treatment scandal.

Letters obtained by us reveal Dr Norman Pratt, a non-executive member of the health board, accused senior management last year of being “complicit in the cover-up of a major clinical service scandal”.

He is said to have described their behaviour as “on a par with those actions reported in respect of the most major public life scandals of the last 20 years”.

Around 200 patients were given lowerthan-standard doses of chemotherapy drugs by doctors in Tayside between December 2016 and March 2019 in a bid to reduce harmful side effects.

Dr Pratt alleges the health board’s “own medical management” privately accepts there is no clinical evidence patients were put at any increased risk – but have allowed doctors to remain in the firing line over a series of botched and disputed government reviews.

He was a member of the board when it signed off on those government reviews in 2019, but has since come to the view that they did not fully investigate the available evidence.

After raising concerns at the end of 2020, the clinician was issued with a copy of the board’s code of conduct and asked to reflect on his own behaviour.

That response has been described by North East MSP Michael Marra as “entirely insufficient” and having the appearance of trying to silence a complainant.

More than a year later, Dr Pratt has written to members of the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party cancer group still seeking answers for doctors and patients.

The doctors were subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing by the General Medical Council in a ruling that appears to be in conflict with the government-ordered reviews. The revelation has sparked fresh calls for an independent investigation.