Police investigate 105 cases of alleged negligence in Brighton hospital

Police are investigating 105 cases of alleged medical negligence at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton amid claims of a cover-up.

Specialist officers from the National Crime Agency and Sussex police are looking into cases of harm, which include at least 40 deaths, in the general surgery and neurosurgery departments between 2015 and 2021.

An email from Sussex police, released to The Times after a court application, revealed the huge investigation is looking into 84 cases connected to neurology and 21 related to gastroenterology. Most of the families are yet to be told that their case is among them.

Officers were called in by the senior coroner after she heard of allegations made by two consultant surgeons at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest NHS organisations with 20,000 staff.

The trust has been accused of bullying the whistleblowers and attempting to cover up the circumstances of the deaths. Mansoor Foroughi, a consultant neurosurgeon, was sacked for “acting in bad faith” in December 2021 after raising concerns about 19 deaths and 23 cases of serious patient harm.

Another whistleblower, Krishna Singh, a consultant general surgeon, claimed that he lost his post as clinical director because he said the trust promoted insufficiently competent surgeons, introduced an unsafe rota and had cut costs too quickly.

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Source: The Times, 27 November 2023