The NHS whistleblower whose evidence helped jail a butcher breast surgeon has spoken for the first time.
Ian Paterson, 64, had misdiagnosed cancer in healthy patients and performed unnecessary surgery including unregulated cleavage-sparing mastectomies.
Convicted on 17 counts of wounding with intent, he was jailed for 20 years in 2017.
Now whistleblower Hemant Ingle, who worked alongside Paterson in the NHS and private sector, has spoken publicly.
He told ITV : “Every patient was an eye opener. Once I started reading the notes, it was a Pandora’s Box. I was very surprised that these patients would have a very small – what is called a fibroadenoma – which is a benign lump in the breast.
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“Without biopsy, they would go straight to theatre. He had coded them as cancer, but none of these cases had cancer.”
Mr Ingle raised concerns about Mr Paterson’s practices when he began working alongside him in the NHS in 2007.
After writing letters to senior managers in the NHS, they commissioned a report but this was kept private.
Mr Ingle was moved to another hospital and later wrote to bosses at a private hospital where he and Paterson worked.
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One victim, John Ingram who had a phobia of surgery, underwent an unnecessary double mastectomy after being told he was “on the road to developing breast cancer”.
An inquiry later said Paterson was left free to butcher thousands of patients by a “dysfunctional” healthcare system.
The NHS paid out £17.4million after settling cases of more than 270 patients who sued over unnecessary or botched surgery. Spire Healthcare, where Paterson worked, agreed to pay £27.2m to compensate a further 750 patients.
