Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust: Final report on the Patient Notification Exercise (PNE) and patient recall regarding patients under the care of Mr Mian Munawar Shah (11 March 2025)

Summary

Following concerns raised in early 2020 about surgical outcomes of an individual orthopaedic Surgeon, Mr Mian Munawar Shah, his employer, Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust (the Trust) sought external review of a small number (17) of complex upper limb surgery cases by a specialist team from the Royal College of Surgeons (the RCS) through the invited review mechanism. This reported in November 2020 and identified some concerns regarding practice within the trauma and orthopaedic department.

The Trust subsequently requested a further RCS review specifically of Mr Shah’s practise, to more fully assess possible concerns regarding outcome after his surgery. Through this the total number of cases reviewed by the RCS was extended to 99. The results of this review were released in April 2022, and following evaluation of both reviews, the Trust decided to undertake a patient notification exercise (PNE) and recall of patients who had undergone complex upper limb surgery by Mr Shah. The recall was initiated in September 2022, the final patient case reviews being completed in September 2024.

This report describes the process, oversight, scrutiny and findings of that recall.