Overview
- An independent review published this week found a decade of governance breakdowns in County Durham and Darlington’s breast surgery service that exposed patients to avoidable harm, prompting a public apology from the trust.
- BBC reporting revealed nearly £6m in payments since 2019 for out-of-hours clinics run by a trust breast surgeon who was also a director of a provider, raising conflict-of-interest concerns flagged in the review; the trust says outsourcing has stopped.
- Spire Healthcare says it is supporting the trust’s ongoing review of NHS patients after the report highlighted weak oversight of private contracts and high‑volume benign procedures that contributed to treatment delays.
- The scale of harm is still being quantified, with reports citing 43 patients suffering significant harm and around 1,600 cases under investigation.
- Women describe missed or delayed diagnoses, unnecessary major surgery and failures to offer reconstruction, with the trust confirming errors in individual cases as legal representatives pursue answers for affected patients.