Breast surgeon's victim wants faster improvements

Victims of breast surgeon Ian Paterson said independent inquiry improvements are not being implemented fast enough.

Paterson was jailed in 2017 after he was found to have carried out needless operations on patients across Birmingham and Solihull. The 2020 report's recommendations include the recall of his 11,000 patients to assess their treatment.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it is working to stop future patients facing similar harm.

On Sunday, ITV screened a documentary 'Bodies of Evidence: The Butcher Surgeon' which featured victim and campaigner Debbie Douglas, who was instrumental in getting the inquiry established.

She said the government needs "to put pace behind" the work to implement the 15 recommendations it made.

"It is important those recommendations are embedded in legislation, it is important there is governance over those recommendations to stop another Paterson, it is important that there is a proper consent procedure," she said.

The recommendations called for consultants to write directly to patients to explain proposed surgical treatment as standard practice, a public register to detail which types of operations surgeons are able to perform and for patients to be given time to reflect on their diagnosis and treatment options before they are asked to consent to surgery.

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Source: BBC News, 14 June 2022