Breast cancer failings: “Culture of complacency” led to unnecessary surgery and delayed treatment at NHS trust
Patients underwent unnecessary mastectomies or had cancer diagnoses delayed because of long running systemic failures at an NHS hospital trust, an independent review has found.1
A “culture of complacency” let governance failures in the breast surgery service at County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust go uncorrected from 2012 to 2025, the external review by the governance expert Mary Aubrey concluded.
Source: BMJ News, 1 December 2025