‘Lives destroyed for speaking up’ at top hospital, claim doctors

Nearly 200 doctors at a major teaching hospital have told a “listening exercise” prompted by a major care scandal that they feared raising patient safety concerns.

The doctors at Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust raised fundamental concerns about the organisation’s culture, with one alleging they had seen “colleague[s’] professional lives destroyed… for speaking up”.

The trust commissioned the exercise, undertaken by the NHS’s internal consultancy, Transformation Partners in Health and Care, as part of its response to an investigation into a failing paediatric surgeon.

Kuldeep Stohr is accused of harming numerous children over a 10-year period at the trust, while many staff feared speaking up about their concerns about the now-suspended consultant.

In February 2025, CUH confirmed nine children were so far found to have received substandard care from Kuldeep Stohr, with a wider review of 800 further cases, due to be published this year.

The  “listening exercise” report, published by the trust and sent to staff this week, suggests fears about speaking up about patient safety – which arose in the case of Ms Stohr – are not confined to a single department.

Three-quarters (175) of the 233 senior doctors who responded described either “fear associated with speaking up [and] concern about repercussions; emotional fatigue; or low confidence that concerns would be addressed”.

Departments with the most concerns included “neurosciences; emergency medicine; paediatrics, and some surgical specialties”, but across all areas “most participants described either direct or indirect concern about repercussions” from speaking up.

And when patient harm matters were raised, “the vast majority of participants perceived ‘nothing’ had happened once concerns were raised”.

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Source: HSJ, 16 July 2026

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