A hospital is being urged to suspend surgeons whose operations are being examined by police as part of a widening investigation into alleged medical negligence and cover-ups over dozens of deaths and harm to patients.
Sussex police have yet to confirm the number of cases under investigation in the general surgery and neurosurgery departments at Royal Sussex County hospital in Brighton. But since it was launched in June, Operation Bramber has widened to include more recent cases and is now believed to involve alleged mistakes in the treatment of more than 100 patients from 2015 and 2021, including at least 40 who died.
Patients’ families and campaigners have called on the hospital to suspend surgeons whose cases are under review by police. University Hospitals Sussex NHS foundation trust is resisting such calls, saying it has confidence in the surgeons involved.
In the six months since the investigation began, Sussex police have yet to formally notify the families of patients involved.
But some have been told that family liaison officers will be appointed to support them. They include Audrey Sharma, whose husband – whom she declined to name – was left severely disabled in April 2020 after he was misdiagnosed as having a grade 4 tumour requiring an immediate operation. During surgery he suffered a stroke which the trust claimed was an “unavoidable complication” despite it happening in 5% of such procedures.
In a letter to the trust she expressed alarm the neurosurgeon involved was still operating on patients. “Surely he should be suspended pending the investigation outcome,” she wrote.
Responding last week in a letter sent on behalf of the trust’s chief executive, Dr George Findlay, the trust refused to acknowledge that the surgeon’s cases were being reviewed and said it was a matter for police to divulge. It confirmed a number of cases were being reviewed but denied that particular surgeons were being investigated.
“We do not think that your husband had a stroke due to a clinical error,” it added.
After being sent a copy of the letter on Thursday, Sussex police asked Sharma to make a full statement about her husband’s treatment.
The neurosurgeon involved was one of six named in a 70-page 2021 dossier, seen by the Guardian, that details “worrying cases of mortality and permanent severe morbidity” in the department. Mansoor Foroughi, a neurosurgeon turned whistleblower who wrote the dossier, was sacked by the trust in 2021 for allegedly raising these concerns in bad faith. It was his allegations, and those of another consultant, Krishna Singh, who lost his post as clinical director after blowing the whistle about problems in general surgery, that prompted the police investigation.
Three of the neurosurgeons named in Foroughi’s dossier are still employed by the trust and operating on patients. None of the hospital’s nine neurosurgeons are under investigation by the General Medical Council.
The police investigation has prompted anxiety from patients and their families. The partner of a man who was referred to the hospital after being diagnosed with a brain tumour said she had “grave concerns”.
She added: “It seems wilful blindness that consultants being investigated have unfettered access to vulnerable, unsuspecting patients.”
Brainstrust, a charity that campaigns for people with brain cancer, backed the call to suspend surgeons. Its chief executive, Will Jones, said: “Transparency should prevail. If people know what is going on they are more likely to feel reassured and high levels of trust will be maintained.
“In the interests of patient and staff wellbeing, it would be logical if any member of patient-facing staff at any hospital that is involved in an ongoing police investigation relating to their work to be suspended, without prejudice, until an outcome is reached.”
In her letter to the trust, Sharma accused the hospital of being guarded about her husband’s treatment. She said: “Your harsh treatment of whistleblowers gives me no faith that any lessons have been learned/implemented by your organisation.”
She also said the hospital refused to disclose internal concerns about the surgeons’ complication rates. She said: “I can choose a restaurant or hotel with more confidence than a surgeon.”
Prof Katie Urch, the trust’s chief medical officer, said: “Keeping patients as safe as possible is the single most important job we have, so we will always act whenever necessary to protect people from avoidable harm.
“As well as our own internal safeguards and auditing, we closely monitor national data on patient outcomes for all our services. Those for neurosurgery are similar to the NHS standard, and have been for a number of years.
“However, we always listen to recommendations on how to improve standards of care, both from inside and outside the trust, and take steps to implement them wherever we can.”
