Concerns around deaths at Royal Sussex ‘ignored and / or deliberately concealed’

Claims have been made from whistleblowers at the scandal-hit Royal Sussex County Hospital that warnings about patient safety were supressed for years before police were finally called in to investigate at least 40 patient deaths.

Consultant neurosurgeon Mansoor Foroughi, who was sacked after making allegations 17 times between 2018 and 2021 at the hospital, has said concerns were “ignored and/or deliberately concealed”.

Dr Foroughi – who initially raised the alarm about 19 deaths and 23 cases of serious patient harm - claims warnings over the high death rates were deliberately overlooked by a “gang” of other consultants at the Royal Sussex.

Further, another consultant surgeon, Krishna Singh, has spoken of a “single minded sadistic obsession” from senior leadership when he warned of the implications of cost-cutting measures.

Dr Singh – who said he was subject to “bullying and aggressive behaviour” after raising concerns around patient care - also claimed that “determined” cost-cutting “drove up complication rates and patient mortality”.

Sussex Police have now launched Operation Bramber to investigate standards of care at the hospital, with at least 105 cases known to be involved of alleged medical negligence. It covers a time period between 2015 and 2021.

Recent reports from both the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) and the CQC, which covered a time period beyond the end date of Operation Bramber, have both pointed to a ‘culture of fear’ within the hospital and wider University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust, with the RCS also revealing evidence of “poor management of services for over 20 years”.

The surgeons claim they told the chief executive and chief medical officer of the Trust that patients were dying unnecessarily nearly five years before police became involved in May 2023.

The allegations from Dr Foroughi and Dr Singh have been made public in court documents released to The Times and BBC Newsnight, of which the Trust tried to prevent release in a six-month legal battle.

The documents include detailed claims of the doctors’ attempts to blow the whistle being hindered by the alleged bullying behaviour of colleagues, and being sacked after being branded troublemakers.

Slater and Gordon represents growing numbers of individuals and families who have been impacted by poor standards of care at the Royal Sussex, including several cases which form part of Operation Bramber.

“The claims of Dr Foroughi and Dr Singh are hugely concerning and raise serious questions around the practices at work within the Royal Sussex and wider Trust, some of which have already been laid bare through reports from the RCS and CQC,” says Nisha Sharma, principal lawyer and clinical negligence specialist at Slater and Gordon.

“We hope that Operation Bramber will get to the truth of what has been happening at the Royal Sussex, and will help to give the answers that families so badly want and need over what happened in their individual cases.

“We commend The Times and Newsnight for fighting for the release of these further documents, which do paint a very worrying picture around patient care. While we must treat them as allegations, which are denied by the Trust, even from what we know already as a result of the independent reports and evidence, change is desperately needed at this hospital, and this must happen now.”