Salford spinal surgeon caused severe harm to patients

John Bradley Williamson worked at the hospital between 1991 and 2015

A spinal surgeon caused "severe harm" to seven patients under his care during operations, a report has found.

A review of 130 people treated by John Bradley Williamson at Salford Royal Hospital also found 13 patients were moderately harmed by the surgeon.

It found support screws were poorly placed in some people's spines and some patients suffered heavy blood loss.

Mr Williamson declined to comment but Northern Care Alliance, which runs the hospital, apologised for what happened.

The surgeon worked at the hospital between 1991 until January 2015 when he was dismissed due to an unrelated matter.

During that time, he was the clinical lead for spinal surgery from 2005 to 2015.

'Series of complications'

Concerns were raised in 2014 by an anonymous whistle-blower, leading to a review by the Royal College of Surgeons in 2016 into the care of 10 of Mr Williamson's patients.

The review concluded there were no overall concerns although "a series of complications" were acknowledged.

However, in 2021 concerns were raised again and an investigation was launched, headed by external experts, into the care of 130 patients.

As first reported in The Sunday Times, the review identified a number of problems including poor placement of screws to support the spine and a lack of informed consent from many patients for the operations.

It also found some patients suffered a high level of blood loss and poor post-operative reviews.

Calls are now being made for a wider review, looking at the full footprint of the surgeon's career at the hospital since 1991, and for all cases to be re-examined.

'Deeply sorry'

Christian Beadell, a partner at Fletchers Solicitors, who is representing some of the victims, said there had been very little transparency about the timeframe under review.

He said the review needed to be extended and passed to a more independent review body.

Dr Rafik Bedair, Northern Care Alliance's chief medical officer, said: "Every patient has the right to receive a good standard of care and where this is not the case, they deserve to understand what went wrong.

"Sadly, in this case, things did go wrong, and 20 patients were harmed. We are deeply sorry for this."

He said it was "regrettable" that it had taken so long for the investigation to take place, adding the trust had commissioned an independent barrister to review the trust's management of concerns raised regarding the surgeon.