coming up, the first in the investigative series who asks who is checking that your surgeon is up for thejob. it's been a mixed weekend across the country so far. it will be wet and are easier times, equally a bit of sunshine. during the rest of tonight, the rain will return to western parts of england, wales, northern england as well, rain gci’oss northern england as well, rain across northern ireland and heavy burst of rain eastern scotland. elsewhere, quite mild night. tomorrow, a patchy rain in western parts, heavier rain moving northwards across scotland. things brightening up in eastern and southern parts of scotland, northern ireland not having a bad afternoon. england and wales, packed cheek cloud and sunny spells. wet and

windy across the north west of scotla nd windy across the north west of scotland during sunday night, cool in the north as we head into the new week, further south it will turn warmer. in medicine, it's basic. first — do no harm. i just want answers. i want to know so that my head knows what's going on. but who's checking your surgeon is up to the job? well, that was negligent. there's no other description. a single surgeon accused of harming dozens of patients. this is notjust a case of a bad day at the office, this was repeated mistakes of a similar nature. and yet he's been allowed to simply walk away. why did you do this to me? why? why did you try and cover up? dundee — a city thriving in culture, but home to a health board in crisis.

dundee — a city thriving in culture, but home to a health board in crisis. in which a cash strapped nhs board used charity funds to pay for new computer systems. the chairman of nhs tayside, professorjohn connell, has resigned. in recent years, nhs tayside has lurched from scandal to scandal. but i've been investigating other serious concerns — claims that patients have been irreversibly damaged by a brain and spinal surgeon. i want to find out what the health board knew about these concerns and why they allowed the surgeon to carry on operating. tonight on our programme, we'll look at the hidden medical scandal which defies the profession‘s oath to, first, do no harm. pain wears you down.

and knowing that there's nothing that can be done... . .scares me. david vile was someone who enjoyed life, an active family man who liked to travel. but now he lives in constant pain. hi, david. his problems started in 2007, when he suffered a prolapsed spinal disc. i needed the surgery because i couldn't function, literally. i was just in unbelievable pain. he was referred to ninewells hospital in dundee and to sam eljamel, the top consultant neurosurgeon. there, he'd have an operation on his damaged disc. i had faith in this man that he was going to sort my back. a little bit of finesse, he's a brain surgeon after all.

david vile had every reason to be confident. mr eljamel was a high—flyer with a formidable cv. he was even interviewed by the bbc. with the aid of the computer, we'll be able to localise any point within that frame. he was tayside‘s clinical lead for neurosurgery, the head of department and a scottish government adviser. but the operation that david vile thought would be straightforward didn't work. i was in tears a lot of the time because it was so painful. mr eljamel offered him the chance of another operation. he said in his letter to me that there was an 80% chance of this resolving the situation, and... ..i was in agony, so surgery was the option that i took. when david vile came to, he knew something was wrong.

when i woke up, i couldn't feel my legs, and gradually i got the feeling back in my right leg, but not my left leg. the feeling never returned and the pain just got worse. it's now so bad, he can no longer work. he can't straighten up or walk more than short distances. a typical day for me is really not doing anything. i don't take my son to school any more. i don't pick him up any more. i used to spend so much time in my garden. that was my passion. and i can't do that now. at a8, he's been told there's nothing more that can be done. there have been times when i've thought... "..i don't see a future." the only reason that i go on is because of my wife

and because of my son. he's not the only one who says he's been left worse off. i can honestly say the pain i receive now since my surgery is much more severe than it was before. because of the operation, my nerve endings have been destroyed. i'm going to take my first few steps of the day, and it's pretty sore. it'sjarring, like there's no cushioning to the body. so every step i'm taking is really sore. the pain is so bad that i actually want to rip my own face off. nothing that i take is touching it. none of my medications are even coming close to taking edge off it. i was a professional musician for many, many years, i travelled all over the country.

around the same time as david vile, patrick kelly was also referred to mr eljamel. he had a herniated disc and was in a lot of pain. i was told it was a very, very dangerous operation, extremely dangerous. if they cut the wrong nerves, i may not walk again, but i was prepared take that opportunityjust try to get my life back. when he woke up on the ward, patrick kelly says mr eljamel told him the operation had been a success. but on the day he was due to be discharged, there were complications. my lung had collapsed. there was blood all over the floor. the wound had opened. the doctor came along and said, "we're not sure where this blood "is coming from, but if it is internal, and goes in your lungs, "then you're not going to make it." it took doctors days to stabilise him and stop the haemorrhage. it was so bad, he almost died.

just so... you know, i'm not really an emotional man, you know... i look back and i think, "god." you know, how lucky i was. tramadol slow—release. these are painkillers with paracetamol. like david vile, patrick kelly's pain didn't improve. he thought he'd just been unlucky, until he saw this. the newspaper article was short on detail. it simply said mr eljamel had been suspended from ninewells after a patient had undergone surgery on the wrong spinal disc. are you all right there? this was more than seven years after patrick kelly's operation. it prompted him to ask

for his own medical records and a review of his treatment. this is an internal e—mail from a senior consultant at nhs tayside, who later reviewed patrick kelly's notes. he questions whether the work on his discs was actually done. and of the operation, he says it was "ill—advised" and that there was "no reasonable clinical basis to think that it would help." now patrick kelly faces the risk of permanent paralysis. he's in constant pain and rarely leaves the house. and with david vile, we've discovered nhs tayside also found problems after he demanded a review. another internal e—mail obtained by the bbc says mr eljamel‘s surgery on david vile was also unwise, and that the 80% figure mr eljamel gave him for resolving his pain was overstated. the operations on patrick kelly

and david vile took place more than four years before mr eljamel was suspended. i want to get an independent view of what's happened, so i've come to see donald campbell. he's worked as a consultant neurosurgeon for more than 30 years. in david vile‘s case, he thinks mr eljamel overstated the chances of his operation helping. the figures that most people would accept for success rates are that 25% — or a quarter of patients — will be completely cured. about half are a bit better, but not right, and a quarter are no different. to say to a patient that you have an 80% chance of curing them is not, in my view, ethical, because the patient is much more likely to say, "oh, well, let's go ahead and do it," rather than say, "well, maybe i want to go away and think about this, "or talk about it with my family before we say yes."

we asked donald campbell to look at patrick kelly's scans. as far as i can see, he's never actually removed any bone or disc. he's opened the patient and then come out again. he hasn't actually even done the operation? why would he make an incision... ..in a patient who needed disc work? i can't think of any explanation why that should be done. how would you regard mr eljamel? to claim that you have done an operation in this critical area and then not to do it, knowing that the result of approaching the area and not operating on it will be to leave such scar tissue that no—one else is going to operate on it... ..it shows a complete lack of any consideration for the patient. so, he's ruined his chances of actually having surgery which could help?

the risks of such surgery would be so large that i don't think any rational person would accept them. these are not the only cases that raise serious concerns at nhs tayside. tayside says it received 55 complaints about mr eljamel‘s work when problems first came to light, and it started to audit him. it also called in the royal college of surgeons, who carried out an independent investigation. we've been asking for months for the board to release the findings of the report, but it's repeatedly refused. in fact, the first time we requested it, it wouldn't even confirm whether the royal college report exists. the pain isjust excruciating. it is probably as bad now as it was... ..before the operation. it's been two and a half, three hours since i took my medication,

painkillers, this morning... ..but the pain is still there. the chronic pain is permanently in my left hand. and i wear these small latex gloves... ..to reduce the pain level. my right leg... ..being in a bath... feels like it's in a bath of hot water all the time, from the hip bone all the way to the ankle. whereas, my foot feels as though it's in a block of ice. it can be excruciatingly painful at times. we found evidence that bill murray, the patient that you've just seen, may not have had the operation that he was told he had. this is a report from a belgian neurosurgeon who examined him after his operation at ninewells, and of mr eljamel‘s surgery, it says no trace of it can be seen. donald campbell looked at the patient‘s scans. he hasn't touched the disc at all, and the whole point of doing the operation is to remove the disc

and remove the pressure on the spinal cord. and you can see from the scan, that didn't happen. that was not done at all. and then to tell the patient that you had done the operation is simply not true. what do you think of that? it's completely unacceptable. it's dishonest. the fact that these problems weren't picked up earlier raises serious questions about the oversight at nhs tayside. i've been handed documents which show that not only was mr eljamel failing to use x—rays during surgery, which meant that sometimes he operated in the wrong area of the spine, but that he taught his trainee surgeons to do the same, and that they, too, harmed patients.

one of the documents describes how a junior surgeon carried out surgery at the incorrect spinal level while under instruction from mr eljamel. despite the trainee surgeon clearly raising concerns, he says mr eljamel advised him the site was correct and told him to carry on with the operation. the patient ended up with irreversible spinal damage. sue grant is a lawyer who represents a number of patients harmed by mr eljamel. i do find it a little difficult to understand how trainee surgeons were allowed to be trained in practices which were... ..not approved by the other neurosurgeons within the unit, and how that was allowed to continue for as long as it was. but the senior members of the team in ninewells would have to explain that. it's highly, highly unusual for such

a prominent and established surgeon to make so many surgical errors. this is notjust a case of a bad day at the office. legal sources say the cost to nhs tayside health board of mr eljamel‘s errors could run into millions. so how could it have taken so long for anyone to notice that this top surgeon was making so many mistakes? nhs tayside refused to be interviewed for this programme, but in documents we obtained, it claims mr eljamel‘s performance as a surgeon probably only waned about three years before he was suspended, in an otherwise excellent career. yet we've found concerns about him stretching back 25 years. the concerns we've uncovered

stretch back 25 years, but bosses at nhs tayside say they were only made aware of problems five years ago. they claim they took immediate action. mr eljamel was, they say, placed under supervision while they reviewed his work. but that's not the whole story. i've discovered that even at that point mr eljamel was under supervision and under investigation, he was still able to harm patients. jules rose was a keen marathon runner. that changed in 2013 when she was told she had a brain tumour behind her eye. in august 2013, she had an operation. it appeared to go well, but she wasn't told her surgeon was under investigation and supposedly under supervision. i remember he had a big smile on his face, and he says, "99% removed." and i said, "thank you." just, "thank you. " the tumour was benign, but the brain surgery left her badly scarred and bruised. more than two months later, she got a call from the hospital asking her to meet mr eljamel.

he told me that he hadn't got all the tumour removed, because the tumour was now hidden behind the lacrimal gland. and that was why... ..he had to go back in and perform a second craniotomy, that he hadn't got all the tumour out because it had been hiding. and i believed him. it was devastating news for the family. i think the worst thing for me was having to go back and tell my two daughters... ..that i was going back in for surgery. i really didn't think i would be that lucky to get away with it again. and that was a real worry. you know, i was scared. 0n the 9th of december, 2013, she went in again under mr eljamel.

but she was so concerned about having a second operation, she asked for her medical records. afterwards, when she read them, she realised the explanation given for having the second operation wasn't true. her medical records show that he removed the wrong part of her body. instead of taking out the tumour, he removed her tear gland. as a result of her injury, jules rose launched a legal action. and in 2016, nhs tayside settled her case out of court. since the operation, she suffers pain and constant dry eye problems. she's been depressed and runs the risk of her condition deteriorating. it's atrocious... ..for nhs tayside to allow... ..this surgeon... ..who had blatantly made a mistake the first time, to allow him to perform another...

..complex operation. it's unthinkable. it's not acceptable. nhs tayside told us they acted immediately to suspend mr eljamel after they received the results of the royal college of surgeons‘ review of his work. but that's not true. the royal college of surgeons told us it sent the report on the 6th of december — a full three days before jules rose's operation — and that it completed the interim report two months ahead of that. so, why was mr eljamel allowed to carry on operating? if the health board had come to the conclusion that they were going to suspend him... ..i would have expected that that would have been immediate. there must have been someone who knew he was to be suspended

the day before that operating list, and he should not have been allowed to do it. after months of asking for it, nhs tayside finally gave us the redacted findings of the royal college of surgeons‘ review. and it's damning. it talks about a surgeon who failed to supervise his trainees, who regularly got his juniors to do his operations for him and who rushed surgery. it says he was often difficult to get hold of because he was busy doing private work, and some of his colleagues had complained he'd bullied them. so, what have the repercussions been for mr eljamel? he was allowed to retire from nhs tayside and to remove himself from the uk medical register, which means no further investigation, no sanction, and no disciplinary action by the general medical council. the gmc wouldn't give

us an interview. it said its priority is to protect patients, not to punish doctors. but for patients, it means no answers and no accountability. i think the remarkable thing here is that there's simply no explanation and that there are so many cases. the only person who can explain why they were misled is professor eljamel, and thus far, there has only been silence. i want to find mr eljamel and ask him some questions. but where is he? we know he's dissolved his businesses and sold up in the uk. we've been looking for mr eljamel for months, but he's been really hard to find. we think he might now be living in america, so we've come

here to track him down. he still owns a flat in this luxury neighbourhood in connecticut. his name's on the buzzer, but it seems he's not here now. neighbours say he's vanished. this is a recording... so we tracked down every property linked to him. i was looking for mr sam eljamel. we even find and speak to his relatives. i was trying to find a relative of yours, mr sam eljamel. i know him, but i don't know where he is. this feels like a man who doesn't want to be found. and yet we've discovered that he's paid his $200 dues this year for the american association of neurological surgeons — an organisation that stipulates members must be licensed to practise medicine. sam eljamel no longer is. not something he told them, though.

and when the bbc contacted connecticut's hartford hospital, where he claims he completed a medicalfellowship, it told us he never finished the course. in spite of seemingly having a presence in the us, we couldn't find him here. and it turns out that even lawyers in scotland taking cases against him are having trouble tracking him down. in fact, we've discovered they've become so frustrated at being unable to get hold of mr eljamel that they've asked for the court of session in edinburgh to order him to provide an up—to—date address so he can be contacted. so, how do patients failed by their doctors getjustice nhs tayside told us it has listened to patients' concerns and taken

appropriate action to support them. it said there has been much learning by the organisation and many improvements made, and that the board complies with all national standards relating to spinal surgery. mr eljamel‘s lawyer told us his client had no comment to make. our investigation has discovered deep flaws in a system that allowed harm to be done to patients over and over again — harm that cannot be undone. it points to a scandal that goes beyond one surgeon to a failure in a health board and health system, that means a rogue surgeon went unchecked for years. and then, he simply walked away. this man needs to come to an inquiry and answer the questions that are put to him, because at the moment, he has said nothing. absolutely nothing. he needs to be held to account for what he's done.

and nhs tayside, because they've allowed this as well. we need questions asked in the scottish parliament. we need the waking up and make sure that this never ever happens again. good evening, it has been a mixed e—learning across the country so far and that is not going to change during sunday. different places will have different types of weather but

it will be wet and breezy at times, equally a bit of sunshine. the night, rain returning to western parts of england, wales, northern england as well, rain across northern ireland and heavy burst of rain across scotland, the far north—east holding on to clear skies so north—east holding on to clear skies so relatively chilly here, elsewhere quite mild night. tomorrow, patchy rain in western parts, heavier rain moving northwards across scotland. brighter in southern and eastern scotland. northern ireland not having a bad afternoon. england and wales, patchy cloud and sunny spells, warming the south—east corner. wet and windy across north and west scotland during sunday night. cooler in the north but further south it will turn warmer. this is bbc world news today. our top stories: a court in egypt sentences 75 people over anti—government protests in 2013, which left hundreds of people dead. air attacks by syrian and russian

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