NHS chiefs need same oversight as doctors
Sam Eljamel [public] inquiry should look at who allowed him to harm patients.
Primum non nocere. First do no harm. Hippocrates’ dictum is seared into the cerebrum of the greenest junior doctor as they embark on a career in medicine.
The power of life and death with which clinicians are often credited is overstated. Many illnesses are self-limiting. We are all on the same trajectory from birth to death in, for the most part, a broadly similar timeframe. But the capacity for doctors to do harm is unrivalled.
The decision to hold a full public inquiry into the botched surgery carried out on more than 130 patients at NHS Tayside by Sam Eljamel, employed as a neurosurgeon between 1995 and 2013, was finally announced last week following eight years of stonewalling by government and prevarication by the health board.
The Sunday Times (News UK), 10th September 2023 – archived below for public information.
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