Butcher surgeon probe ‘may have missed patients’
HEALTH campaigners fear patients wrongly treated by a disgraced breast surgeon, who was jailed for performing needless operations, may have been missed despite several reviews.
Cancer survivors operated on by Ian Paterson have called on his old employers to ensure all former patients have been contacted.
The campaigners fear the NHS and private breast treatment reviews risk missing out Paterson’s general surgery patients, who had operations such as gall bladder removal.
Paterson was employed by Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust (HEFT) and also worked at hospitals run by Spire Healthcare before he was suspended in 2011.
Reviews were carried out by Spire in 2014 and HEFT in 2013, with the NHS hospital trust saying it had reviewed or cross-checked nearly 24,500 patient records to assess whether Paterson was involved in their care.
Paterson worked as a consultant at Solihull Hospital from 1998, which became part of HEFT, and did work at private hospitals run by Spire Healthcare from 2007.
Deborah Douglas, who helps run the Breast Friends support group, said: “For me the big thing now is how many other people were affected. We want those facts, we want those figures.”
Paterson, then 59, was found guilty in April at Nottingham Crown Court of 17 counts of wounding with intent, after carrying out “cleavage-sparing mastectomies”, leaving patients at risk of cancer, and other procedures.
He was jailed for 15 years, increased to 20 years on appeal after a judge ruled the original term “unduly lenient”.
In December, the Department of Health announced an independent inquiry into Paterson’s malpractice, falling short of the full public inquiry campaigners wanted.
Mrs Douglas, 59, said she had little faith in the investigation’s chances of uncovering significant new information as it had no powers to compel people to give evidence. However, the mother-of-three added it could provide a “step forward” if full statistics on patient numbers, both those still alive and those who have since died, come out as a result of the inquiry.
Mrs Douglas, who was scarred by Paterson in a cleavage-sparing mastectomy, said: “He was a general surgeon as well as a breast cancer surgeon. How many people out there, with wide local excisions, had recurrences and had secondary cancer?”
HEFT said 1,206 patients seen by Paterson had mastectomies and of those, 675 have since died.
The trust said it had not recalled all patients who had other breast operations, but in 2011 and 2016/17 it reviewed samples of those who had other breast cancer operations and “no concerns were identified”.
It added: “To ensure no patient has been missed in the review, the trust looked at all patients who had a mastectomy procedure, both at Solihull and Good Hope Hospital, by all consultants.”
Data was cross-checked with the West Midlands Cancer Intelligence Unit for patients who had breast cancer between 1994 and 2011.
The trust then sampled breast histopathology specimens from Good Hope, from 1994 to 1998, and Solihull Hospital from 1998 to 2011. In all, 19,000 patients’ records were checked to see if Paterson had any involvement.
But Mrs Douglas said bosses should also look at the pathology of the dead to uncover rates of cancer recurrence, saying they were “missing a massive trick” in not doing so.
HEFT said: “A review of the deceased patients cannot repair any damage that has already been caused nor is it likely to inform the trust of anything that it is not already aware of or provide any tangible benefit to the survivors in this cohort.
“It is reasonable to assume there were similar deficiencies in the treatment of the deceased patients, which may have impacted adversely on their period of life without disease and their survival.”