Hospital in police probe ‘rejected safety checks’
Senior managers accused of wanting favoured candidates rather than better-qualified surgeons
A HOSPITAL at the centre of a police investigation over dozens of patient deaths opted out of following safety guidelines when hiring surgeons, it has been claimed.
Sources allege University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust stopped inviting external assessors to oversee its recruitment of senior doctors.
The use of independent experts from the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) on appointment panels is intended to help ensure that the best candidates are chosen and that they are suitably qualified. This is considered particularly important in the case of overseas applicants.
But the sources claimed that in 2021, senior managers deliberately decided not to invite RCS representatives to sit on the appointment panel for a number of colorectal surgeons. They allege this was to ensure that candidates friendly to the trust leadership were chosen, rather than better qualified doctors.
In February, The Telegraph revealed claims that significant numbers of unqualified consultants were allowed to operate on patients at the trust.
The organisation is at the centre of a major police inquiry into at least 40 deaths and more than 60 other incidents of patient harm in the general surgery and neurosurgery departments.
In 2021, the Royal Sussex County Hospital merged with others to form the current foundation trust.
Foundation trusts, which have more freedoms than normal trusts, are not obliged to have royal college representatives on appointment panels, but it is considered best practice to do so.
Dr George Findlay, the chief executive at the trust, told a recent local council meeting: “We will always involve royal colleges to be part of our recruitment process, and if they can do so, we will have them as part of that process.”
However, this appeared to be contradicted by an RCS statement yesterday. A spokesman told The Sunday Telegraph:
“We have no record of requests from the University Hospitals Sussex Foundation Trust to sit on appointment panels of consultant surgeons during 2021.” A source at the trust told The Sunday Telegraph the 2021 incident when RCS representatives were not invited to advise on the hiring of colorectal surgeons was part of a “pattern” of weakening of clinical governance, the framework to safeguard patients.
“The trust wanted their favoured doctors in those jobs, even though there were better-qualified candidates, so they kept the royal college out,” they claimed.
Two surgeons turned whistleblowers are suing the trust at an employment tribunal and allege a “gang culture” suppressed concerns of risks to patients.
A trust spokesman said: “We fully comply with all recruitment processes agreed between NHS Foundation Trusts and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. We value the support that the royal colleges offer at each stage of the recruitment process.
“Our appointment panels are usually chaired by a non-executive board member, include doctors with relevant speciality expertise, and work to clear criteria to select the strongest candidate.”