Staff at a health board which destroyed dozens of key documents, despite being ordered not to by an injury judge, could now face criminal charges.
NHS Tayside officials binned around 40 theatre logbooks which may have provided vital clues as to the practice of rogue surgeon Sam Eljamel.
It had been handed a formal do not destroy order by the Eljamel Inquiry last year but, in a remarkable admission, the health board confessed the documents had been destroyed.
Jamie Dawson KC, the inquiry’s senior counsel, yesterday said it was ‘troubling that NHS Tayside has admitted to potentially important theatre logbooks relating to Mr Eljamel’s practice having been destroyed’.
He also warned of ‘potentially serious consequences’ under the Inquires Act. Under the act, a person who ‘intentionally suppresses or conceals a document that is, and that he knows or believes to be, a relevant document, or…intentionally alters or destroys any such document’ can face criminal sanction.
NHS Tayside said it ‘deeply regrets this error’ and staff were unaware of a connection between the logbooks and Eljamel.
But they were told that this explanation would ‘not suffice’ and more detail was needed. If not, staff at the health board face being grilled over the fiasco. Eljamel was head of neurosurgery at Dundee Ninewells Hospital from 1995 until his suspension in 2013. He harmed dozens of patients and left some with life-changing injuries.
The probe was told yesterday that despite do not destroy notices being submitted in October 2024, the logbooks were disposed of in July this year.
Eljamel was head of neurosurgery at Dundee Ninewells Hospital from 1995 until his suspension in 2013
Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, where rogue Surgeon Sam Eljamel worked
Mr Dawson told the Edinburgh-based hearing: ‘The board has a responsibility to ensure the obligations placed on it by the inquiry are adhered to.’
The tribunal heard that NHS Tayside hoped the information in the logs may be found in other places, such as medical records.
But Mr Dawson said those records were found to ‘have been inaccurate and incomplete’, which is why the probe was tasked to investigate the board’s document management systems.
The King’s Counsel said: ‘No doubt patients who harbour these concerns about their records, will approach NHS Tayside’s claim that the evidence will be found in them with a degree of scepticism.
‘It is noted by the inquiry in that context that this is an admitted failure of document management.
‘The legal position is that this occurrence can have potentially serious consequences in terms of both sanction under Section 35 of the Act and evidentially.
The inquiry will resume at a later date.
Meanwhile, the investigations to track down Eljamel have stepped up.
The disgraced doctor fled Scotland for his homeland Libya, where he is still working as a surgeon despite harming scores of patients in botched operations.
Eljamel, who was once a revered professor at Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital before his malpractice came to light, has so far ignored multiple requests to contact him by the inquiry investigating his actions.
Now the probe has stepped up its efforts to find him, but warned that it only had powers in Scotland.
Jamie Dawson KC, senior counsel to the inquiry, said yesterday: ‘Notice has been served on a body in Scotland seeking information, which it is believed to hold about aspects of Mr Eljamel’s financial arrangements in this country.
‘Further investigations are being undertaken relating to another aspect of Mr Eljamel’s business affairs in this country.
‘I provide that information by way of reasonable update, but go no further in case doing so publicly might frustrate those lines of inquiry.’
