Help
Here you can find ways you can help the cause, or help yourself and future patients in the care of NHS Tayside.
On this page
- Public Inquiry Advice – latest advice about getting involved.
- Police Scotland Advice – advisory note about Police Scotland investigation and contact information.
- Get in touch with your local MSP (or MP) – they may be able to support and advise.
- Get in touch with your local Councillor at your local Council – they may be able to support and advise.
- Tell us about your experience – we are collecting contact details from patients, or their families, who have been impacted.
- Advice about requesting Medical Records – what the differences are, who holds them, and how to contact them.
- How to complain about Medical Records requests – Getting nowhere? Some suggestions on how to complain.
Public Inquiry Advice (Updated)
With the announcement of a Public Inquiry on 7th of September 2023, we’ve provided the following advice.
As a patient or family member of a patient you can seek to be a member of the harmed patients’ ‘core participant cohort’ – where a ‘core participant’ is “a person, an organisation or other entity with a significant interest a UK Public Inquiry”. A ‘core participant’ will have “participatory rights” in the Public Inquiry and will…
- be provided with disclosure of evidence which the Chair considers is relevant to their participation in the Inquiry. Such disclosure will be subject to any restriction orders issued by the Chair under section 19 of the Inquiries Act 2005;
- have the opportunity to make opening and closing statements via their recognised legal representatives (unless the Chair directs otherwise);
- be able to suggest lines of questioning at oral hearings via Counsel to the Inquiry;
- be able to apply through their recognised legal representatives to the Chair to ask questions of witnesses during a hearing; and
- be provided with advance copies of the Inquiry’s reports (including the final report) prior to publication.
[above list quoted from Gov.UK]
These definitions can be checked with the resources available from gov.uk which also provides some basic advice about whether you need to be a ‘core participant’ or not to be involed in a Public Inquiry.
The recommendation from us is to strongly consider joining the harmed patients ‘core participants’ cohort that is being organised by L&M Medilaw, contact details follow. Elizabeth Rose, one of their solicitors, has been with us for some time at this campaign, providing advice and support. Whilst we understand not everyone will wish to join this group, we recommend you strongly get in touch with this solicitor and discuss.
This website, and the group, is not giving legal advice and you should make your own enquiries. Likewise, we cannot answer legal questions.
Please also note that if you already have another solicitor/legal relationship with an ongoing case or issue this is completely separate to being a ‘core participant’ and can sit alongside existing action you may be involved with. You can obviously discuss this with your existing solicitor who will also be able to assist and clarify – ask them about ‘core participant’.
Finally – a reminder that you can get in touch with L&M Medilaw if you are the patient, or family of the patient, who was under NHS and/or Private Healthcare.
Contact for L&M MediLaw
NHS and/or Private Patients, or family of patients, who have a connection to Neurosurgeon Sam Eljamel (e.g. being operated on at an NHS or Private hospital) can get advice about becoming involved as a ‘core participant’ by contacting:
Website: www.landmmedilaw.com
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +441414713078 / 0141 471 3078
Text/WhatsApp: +447599110851
Or by writing to:
L&M MediLaw
Levy & McRae Solicitors LLP,
70 Wellington Street,
Glasgow G2 6UA
Police Scotland Advice
If you believe you, or a family member, may have been harmed by the actions of neurosurgeon Mr Muftah Salem Eljamel (aka Sam Eljamel) the team that surrounded him or the organisations that employed him: please get in touch with Police Scotland.
With the announcement of the Public Inquiry they have reclassified the investigation as a Major Investigation.
How to contact the police
Contact the investigation team directly at: [email protected]
General guidance for contacting the police if you can’t email:
Website: www.scotland.police.uk/contact-us
In all instances please mention Detective Inspector Willie Murdoch, Major Investigations Team.
Get in touch with your local MSP (or MP)
If you’ve been impacted by the actions of Eljamel and/or NHS Tayside – consider contacting your representative MSP (or if you are no longer a constituent with a Scottish MSP, and are elsewhere in the UK – contact your local MP). Find your representative here:
Get in touch with your local Councillor (your local council)
You may also wish to contact a Councillor at your Local Council who may also be able to provide some assistance and advice. Find your local Councillors here:
Tell us about your experience
We’re currently collecting contact details and information from patients impacted by the issues.
Please consider completing our quick questionnaire for patients or their representatives, there’s only a few questions and it will help us to contact you for future updates.
If you’d rather just contact us via email, you can do that too and one of the team will be in touch.
Medical Records
A frequently misunderstood issue: medical records held by an NHS Hospital are separate to any records held by your General Practitioner (GP), Dentist, Optician, or other care provider.
So we encourage you to request your records from multiple sources as you might find, for example, there are documents from your experiences at NHS Tayside hospitals in your GP records where something has been communicated.
Contact NHS Tayside
Consider contacting NHS Tayside and asking for your medical records and explain to them what has happened. We would recommend doing this via letter or as an email in the first instance.
For NHS Tayside medical records are administered by:
Access Office
Health Records Department
Level 7, Ninewells Hospital
Dundee
DD1 9SYEmail: [email protected]
Phone: 01382 632888 / 01382 633743 / 01382 636078Website: Accessing Health Information @ NHS Tayside
If you aren’t getting anywhere with the Health Records Department, or you’ve got some records returned but they are missing important information, or the info is unreadable – you can always make a complaint directly. See below for information about how to complain.
Contact your General Practitioner (GP), Physiotherapist, or other care provider
NHS Tayside unable to ‘find’ your records? You may also want to consider asking your GP, physiotherapist, or other care provider who may retain notes or correspondence at the time of your surgery.
If you are requesting from your current GP, or the GP at the time of your surgery, they should be able to give you details on their process for requesting medical records held about you by their practice. Contact them in the first instance and ask them how you can recieve a copy of all records held about you.
NHS Scotland has a general page about your rights to access this information. For specific information on GP records they also have advice about how your GP records are kept and shared amongst GPs if you move.
You might also have had physiotherapy or other care after surgery, and they may also retain records and/or correspondence with the surgeon or hospital at the time. They may also contain information about their own assessment of the problem they are helping you with, and that could be useful later.
How to complain about Medical Records requests.
If you aren’t getting anywhere with requests for your Medical Records from NHS Tayside, or your GP records or other care provider then you need to understand your rights.
Any NHS organisations must comply with your request for Medical Records in a timely fashion. This is dictated by legislation under the data protection laws. A request by you for records held about you, the subject, is commonly referred to as a ‘Subject Access Request’ in this legislation.
You can find out about what you should expect when making these requests by checking out this guide from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
Step 1 – formally complain to the organisation you are requesting data from.
In all cases, if you feel that the organisation hasn’t followed the timelines laid out – then you should always send an email stating that you wish to complain about their timely handling of the ‘Subject Access Request’. You should do that before you do anything else, though you do not have to wait before you then raise a complaint to the ICO.
For example, in the case of NHS Tayside you should contact them to make a complaint by following their instructions. For other organisations please check their website for further info, or search the internet for phrases with the organisations name and the term “make a complaint regarding subject access request”.
Step 2 – raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) regarding the organisation who is infringing your rights of access.
In order to raise a complaint to the ICO about a problem with a ‘Subject Access Request’ please read their advice here carefully and then follow the questionnaire that will help you prepare for submitting your complaint.
Step 3 – if you raise a complaint with the ICO please tell us.
We would be interested to know if you do raise a complaint to the ICO as we are tracking a number of patients doing so –please get in touch with us.
Other ways of getting help.
Whilst you are doing this – please consider raising the issue with your local MSP/MP/Councillor.
If complaining to the ICO seems daunting, consider speaking with your Citizen’s Advice Buerau who should be able to advise you about all of this… and perhaps help you if you are struggling to navigate the complaints procedures.