The police investigation into allegations of preventable deaths and injuries at the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust has doubled the number of cases it is looking at and is considering gross negligence manslaughter and corporate manslaughter charges. The investigation revolves around care and treatment provided by the trust between 2015 and 2021 and was started in 2023 when two whistleblowers raised allegations of medical negligence at the trust’s units of neurosurgery and general surgery. This comes several years after Nuffield Health, the private healthcare provider, had suspended operations at the Brighton hospital because of safety concerns. The investigation is seen as being at an early stage.
The number of cases under investigation has increased to over 200, an increase that is attributed to more families having contacted the police. While most of the cases under investigation relate to the neurosurgery department, the specifics for the increased cases in the police investigation have not been detailed, but it is known that the allegations are regarding preventable deaths and injuries at the trust.
Separately, the family of Wendy Gibbs, 80, alleged that she was lied to by a senior surgeon in the trust’s general surgery department, before he carried out an operation that left her with life-threatening injuries. Marc Lamah informed her that he wanted to switch the procedure to a different Nuffield hospital because the Brighton site didn’t have a specific type of scanner he would need. The machine was also not available at the second hospital.
When Mrs Gibbs’ operation occurred in March 2024, Mr Lamah mistakenly snipped her bowel, causing internal bleeding, which was not spotted for hours. Mrs Gibbs developed sepsis, a life-threatening condition. She needed an emergency second operation, again carried out by Mr Lamah, at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, which is part of the NHS trust under investigation.
Mr Lamah continues to operate at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, as the trust says his NHS outcomes were within the expected national range. Speaking anonymously, a former NHS colleague of Mr Lamah told the BBC that the surgeon had been “pulled up on a few occasions for things that were significantly unprofessional”. The colleague says that one of these occasions related to an emergency operation, when Mr Lamah announced that he was setting himself a challenge to finish in 45 minutes, despite there being no need to do so.
The University Hospitals Sussex NHS Trust said that its neurosurgery team had faced significant challenges since 2012, and that consequently, some patients were waiting longer for their care than they should have done, “for which we sincerely apologise”. The trust is cooperating with the police investigation and recognised that it has much work to do to improve its performance.
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