Tracking a public inquiry

We are a group of patients adversely impacted by the direct actions of surgeon Mr Muftah Salem Eljamel who practiced at hospitals in NHS Tayside in Scotland from the 1990s.

In 2013 concerning information began to appear indicating multiple problems affecting patients under his care.

Disappointingly NHS Tayside has not, to date, conducted a satisfactorily transparent investigation. The Scottish Government has been selective in their scrutiny and has, so far, not had a satisfactory external investigation into the obvious significant failings within the governance of the NHS and has stated that it is an internal NHS Tayside issue to provide patients with answers. Answers we have been seeking for over a decade without any candour on their own part into internal errors or failures in governance that enabled any surgeon to cause such a level of harm.

This is an issue relevant to all patients in NHS Scotland: as the evident internal bias and lack of transparency, stemming from the very cultures and systems that should put patient rights first, failed catastrophically. The unwillingness to provide clear answers suggests an attempt to cover up the wider issues that resulted in recurring long term harm and injury for multiple patients over a prolonged period.

From the offset NHS Tayside failed to check a surgeon’s claimed credentials, and then failed to effectively ensure his practice was appropriate and safe. While there is no denying the multiple repeated clinical errors and harm he caused, there is a fundamental lack of ownership and scrutiny of how such a level of sustained failure could occur in any public service for such a long time.

Without full unbiased external scrutiny there is no assurance that this isn’t happening again on any level in any part of our health service right now.

The only way for everyone to feel that both the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland are taking this seriously is to have a public inquiry.

Whilst a public inquiry was announced in September 2023, alongside an ‘individual clinical review’ for patients – no time frame has been forthcoming for either of these – we continue our quest for answers. We are tracking the work to establish these.

There is also an ongoing Police Scotland investigation into Eljamel, with requests from patients to widen to the entirety of NHS Tayside and other staff involved.

The group continues to add new members regularly – find out how you can help.