STV NewsThe man tasked with reviewing the care of potentially hundreds of patients harmed by a Tayside neurosurgeon has said the scale of those impacted is “worrying”.
Sam Eljamel carried out more than 4,000 operations during the 18 years he was employed by NHS Tayside, before he was suspended in 2013.
The Patients’ Action Group for Eljamel Public Inquiry estimates 172 people are known to have been harmed by him.
This includes Karen Walker, who had surgery performed by Eljamel to remove a brain tumour in 2007.
During the operation, her facial nerve was severed and she was left permanently disfigured.
Louise Walker, her daughter, said that her mother had been left “housebound” due to the severity of the damage.
“Her face was completely collapsed on her left hand side,” she told STV News.
STV News“We were never told it was transected, we were told it was tatty due to the operation and that it would hopefully grow back.
“It’s been 18 years now and she’s been in every year for surgery to have it reconstructed, to have her eye lifted, to have her face lifted and unfortunately those surgeries haven’t really worked either.
“[She’s in] pain, can’t see properly, felt everyone was staring at her. Basically hid herself, became housebound, wouldn’t go out because of it.”
An independent public inquiry into the disgraced surgeon, who now works in Libya, was announced by ministers in September 2023.
The inquiry will investigate matters related to the actions of the neurosurgeon, who worked for NHS Tayside between 1995 and 2014.
Professor Stephen Wigmore, who is leading the independent clinical reviews, has the huge challenge of reviewing patients care – and he says incomplete and missing patient records are an issue.
“It is a serious situation and the fact that so many people are concerned that they’ve been harmed is very worrying,” he said.
“The independent clinical review has the opportunity to look at not only the individual patients but at the patterns of harm or malpractice.”
STV NewsPatients have met Professor Wigmore to discuss the scope of the reviews, which he said he found “very moving”.
He added: “I got a clear message from the patients that they are concerned about the quality of their records and the information that we will be reviewing. We haven’t ruled out the possibility of clinical examinations in some cases but i think there would have to be a compelling reason to want to do that.”
However, many patients say they’ve lost trust in the process after NHS Tayside was forced to apologise for sending the personal details of 132 patients to the professor, including whether they had lodged a complaint or taken legal action.
An initial leak of patient information took place in February 2024, however the breach was not identified until a Freedom of Information enquiry was submitted ten months later.
As the health board carried out an investigation it was revealed that an anonymised version of the spreadsheet was sent to Professor Wigmore, which also is classed as a data breach.
And in a letter to 132 of Eljamel’s patients in January, NHS Tayside’s board confirmed a second breach had occurred.
The professor has now apologised for his role in an “unwitting mistake”.
He said: “Nothing in that data is anything that we won’t be asking anyway and I’m particularly interested in patients who have previously made a complaint because we’re interested in how NHS Tayside dealt with that complaint and what the outcome of it was and it doesn’t introduce any bias or there case won’t be looked at in any different way.”
Professor Wigmore hopes to start reviewing patients care as soon as possible, which will form part of the clinical evidence for the public inquiry.
Some patients want help with their mental health, others want to find out what went wrong, and why, but most of all – they all want to make sure it can’t happen again.
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