- By Joe Pike and Charlotte Rawls
- BBC News Night
A man discovered a medical specimen bag had been left in his stomach after undergoing hernia surgery, the BBC reports.
Surgeons who performed the operation at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton in 2016 also left behind part of Tom Hudlis’s intestines which they removed during the operation.
According to the hospital’s accident report, seen by BBC Newsnight, the surgeon realised his mistake while walking home from work.
Sussex Police are investigating at least 105 cases of suspected medical negligence by two surgical teams at Sussex University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The trust said the work of the surgical team is “continuously and closely monitored” and that “if care is not meeting high standards, immediate action will be taken”.
Tom Hadleys, a 63-year-old retired engineer, remembers regaining consciousness in a recovery bed as the effects of the general anaesthetic began to wear off and a doctor calling out to him.
“I was conscious,” Hadris said, “and I heard the surgeon whisper in my ear. I think he said, ‘I’m very sorry,’ and then he said, ‘I’ve made a mistake. You need to go back to the operating room.'”
Hadris later learned that the surgeon was replaying the operation in his head as he was driving home and realised what he had done.
“He did a U-turn and went back to the hospital,” Hadris said.
The same surgeon then performed a second operation to remove both the specimen bag and the portion of intestine that had been accidentally left behind during the first operation.
Hospital administrators classified it as a “never-happening event,” meaning something that should never have happened, and it led to a serious accident investigation.
The hospital’s governing body admitted that surgical errors had delayed Hadris’ recovery, and in 2020 it apologised and paid him a £15,000 settlement.
But the surgeon, who the BBC cannot name for legal reasons, continued to operate and still works at the trust – and was subsequently appointed to a rotating consultant position, against the advice of colleagues who believed he was not sufficiently qualified.
Emails between senior staff highlighted “further concerns about the competence” of the surgeon, and in 2019 the British Medical Council (GMC), which regulates doctors in England, contacted the hospital trust after receiving complaints about the same surgeon.
The trust said the GMC investigation did not relate to patient safety and concluded there was “no case to answer and no action required”.
In 2022, the independent healthcare regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), contacted the hospital trust with concerns about operations carried out by the same surgeon. “Details provided by the trust confirmed to CQC that no further action was required at the time,” the CQC told the BBC.
Junior doctors at the hospital had also raised concerns about patient safety in general, including about the surgeon, to the chief executive and chief medical officer.
The trainees’ wider concerns were cited in an independent report by Health Education England, which included a “clear increase in mortality over several years”.
Professor Katie Arch, chief medical officer at Sussex University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our surgical staff are committed to providing the best and safest care for patients in these difficult circumstances.”
“Surgeons don’t work individually, they work together as a team. The team is highly skilled and performs complex surgeries without risk.”
“Their outcomes are continually and closely monitored both internally and externally and where their care does not meet our high standards we take immediate steps to learn and improve.”
For 10 months the BBC has been investigating concerns about patient safety at Sussex University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Four whistleblowers told the BBC in 2023 that patients had died needlessly and others had been “effectively disabled”. They also complained about a “mafia-like” management culture.
The trust has previously said its main priority is providing “safe and effective care”, that the data does not reflect allegations of unnecessary deaths and there is no evidence of a top-down harmful culture.
Nearly eight years on from her hernia surgery, Hadris spoke to Newsnight about the lasting impact it has had on her health.
“There’s no question that I’m suffering,” he says. “It’s affecting me. I have abdominal weakness now and I can’t even lift heavy things.”
