Britain’s Most Trusted NHS Trust Under Review - written by Matthew Waterfield, Clinical Negligence Fee Earner

Britain’s Most Trusted NHS Trust Under Review

The Case of Warnings Being Ignored and Lives in the Fold

As a specialist clinical negligence firm of solicitors, we are aware of the fantastic job that our NHS does in treating the nation and keeping our population healthy.  They treat all of us equally when we become unwell and we place our trust in them as experts in their field and always tend to take their advice in relation to treatment.  We know also that mistakes made by medical practitioners happen in a very small number of cases taking into consideration the NHS as a whole.

On occasion however, we do come across cases where certain members of the clinical teams treating patients are inexperienced, poorly equipped and fail to take the safety of their patients perhaps as seriously as they ought to.  It is often the case that this is not acted upon by management of the NHS Trust even after whistle-blowers, sometimes consisting of senior surgeons and other senior members of staff, are also ignored.

At Clear Law Solicitors we have a number of cases where this has taken place.

The first involving a surgeon, Dr Nallapuneni Nenkata Suresh Kumar, an Othorpaedic Surgeon, who also works using the name Dr Suresh,  working at the University Hospitals of Morecombe Bay NHS Foundation Trust.  Since 2018, Kumar has been working with restrictions on his licence to practice following an investigation by the General Medical Council. 

During his time working at the Trust, numerous colleagues raised concerns and whistle-blew to the General Medical Council, believed to be 5 in total.  We understand that at least one of the 5 whistle-blowers stated that Dr Suresh was undertaking operations, a knee replacement in our client’s case, unnecessarily. 

The surgeon was holding himself to be a Consultant when he was not one.  He was given paid overtime in an effort, we believe, to bring down waiting lists and was allegedly undertaking surgeries which were not required.  One such surgery included that of our client who underwent a knee replacement when in fact conservative treatment of the symptoms would have alleviated or resolved the pain and suffering to our client.   In addition to this, a number of the surgeries were also undertaken negligently leading to further surgery being required to correct the errors, one whistle-blower allegedly reported.

Dr Suresh worked for the Trust since 1999, according to sources, and one whistle blower said that he stated and described himself as the Trusts leading joint replacement surgeons despite his lack of Consultant qualifications.

Whilst not all surgeons are required to be Consultants, those that are not do need to be monitored.  Errors with this surgeon began to come to light around 2013 and this was reported to management at the time around 2014 when an increasing number of patients were returning with new or ongoing symptoms.

It seems a number of consultants at the University Hospitals of Morecombe Bay NHS Foundation Trust were called into the fold to group together to make these complaints to the General Medical Council to bring about the changes they felt were required by the trust.  An external review was to take place in relation to this matter.

In another instance of whistle-blowers attempting to bring to an end substandard and negligent practices, at the Salford Royal Hospital operated by the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, more than 100 cases are under review.

The consultant concerned with conduct of those patient’s care was Dr John Bradley Williamson, a surgeon responsible for the death of a 17 year old girl who underwent surgery for a twisted spine to be corrected, caused by spina bifada.  The surgery took place in 2007 where she sadly died at Salford Royal Hospital in Manchester.   A recent NHS-Commissioned report concluded the “unacceptable and unjustifiable” actions of her surgeon “directly contributed” to her death.

Reports allege that Dr Williamson continued with surgery despite failing to heed advices and warnings from colleagues that he needed a second consultant surgeon.

The Salford Royal Hospital used to be known as one of the safest NHS Trusts. Whistle-blowers have once again come to the fold and reported cover ups by management and a toxic culture within this particular surgeons team.  Staff allegedly described him as a “Dictatorial Bully” and one of our clients reports that they believe, from his subsequent consultant, that some of the notes kept by Dr Williamson had been doctored and or incorrectly recorded so as to cover any potential mistakes or allegations of Breach of Duty.

Both of the above cases have come to light through our specialist Clinical Negligence Solicitors working closely with our clients to investigate the circumstances around their treatment when dealing with their claims for Compensation.

If you or anyone in your family have been treated by either of these consultants please contact us to discuss your procedure and tell us how your treatment has been.  If you are suffering ongoing symptoms or adverse effects since surgery you may have a claim for compensation.