NHS England’s London region is now carrying out a review into GOSH’s handling of the case.
GOSH said it had already acted on recommendations made by the RCS report, including introducing training on handling complaints, investing more in whistle-blowing support for staff and getting surgeons to discuss the most complex cases they are seeing with the National Royal Orthopaedic Hospital.
Before the concerns were raised in June 2022, the trust said it had received seven complaints about Jabber and looked into one serious incident, its handling of which was signed off by NHS England. The trust insists none of these suggested further investigation or action was needed.
But a surgeon who worked in the same service as Jabbar – Sarah McMahon – is reported to have raised concerns to GOSH management in autumn 2021, but said nothing was done to address her warnings at the time, according to a statement made in parliament by her local MP Dame Meg Hillier.
GOSH chief executive Matthew Shaw acknowledged this was the bleakest day in the history of the hospital.
He said he was “deeply sorry” for the harm caused, but insisted the hospital had acted “incredibly quickly” once concerns were raised.
He said in areas like this, which were hyper-specialised and where there were only a small number of surgeons in the NHS, it was harder to detect problems with practice.
But he added in publishing these findings he hoped the hospital could “starting building trust with families again because they rely on us for many of the things that their children need”.
