Surgeon left patients in pain

Christopher Ingoldby faces a raft of charges

A consultant surgeon accused of serious professional misconduct left at least two patients in severe pain after blundering their operations, a disciplinary hearing has heard.

Christopher Ingoldby, 56, of Roundhay, Leeds, denies serious professional misconduct while working as a gastro-intestinal specialist with the Pinderfields NHS Trust in West Yorkshire.

We were never told that he was terminally ill, never

Sheila Newton

On Tuesday, the second day of the General Medical Council hearing, the widow of one patient told how her husband suffered years of pain following an operation to remove a tumour in February 1996.

The hearing was told that before the operation on Trevor Pearson, 61, from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, the surgeon failed to carry out a scan, biopsy or ultrasound.

And following the operation he failed to recognise that Mr Pearson's spleen had been damaged during surgery.

He did not return to the hospital to deal with his patient's post-operative care and did not make himself available to talk to Mr Pearson's relatives, the hearing heard.

Mr Pearson later died.

His 66-year-old widow, Angela, told the hearing that the surgeon once passed her in a corridor but failed to recognise her.

Great pain

Later the panel heard from 47-year-old Robert Rowney, from Ossett in West Yorkshire who was operated on by Mr Ingoldby in July 1996 after being diagnosed with a tumour on the pancreas.

He told the hearing that he was left in great pain and required further surgery after the surgeon failed to remove his gall bladder.

Mr Rowney said he was ill for several weeks after the operation and became very depressed.

Mrs Sheila Newton, of Ossett, West Yorkshire, who waived her right to anonymity, told how her family had been left traumatised by the death of her 65-year-old husband.

She said they were never told how serious her husband's condition was and they found it very difficult to track Mr Ingoldby down.

'Surprised' by decline

Mrs Newton's husband, known as patient A, was first referred to Mr Ingoldby in 1990 after he developed a rectal tumour, the hearing was told.

He died in April 1994 after the cancer returned.

Mrs Newton said: "We were never told that he was terminally ill, never.

"We weren't told the cancer could return. Nothing was said about his prospects. Mr Ingoldby just said the operation needed doing."

She said that during one operation Mr Ingoldby had accidentally stitched a flap of her husband's bowel causing him to suffer a hernia.

Mrs Newton told the hearing that she wrote to Mr Ingoldby to ask why her husband's condition had deteriorated so quickly and had received a letter back saying he too was "surprised" by the speed of the decline.

Mr Ingoldby, who faces being struck off the medical register if found guilty, is alleged to have failed to explain vital details to several patients and their relatives and to have failed to make accurate surgical notes over a seven-year period.

The charges against him include:

• Causing damage to the bile-duct of a female patient during an operation to remove gallstones.

• Following the operation the patient suffered fever, pain and bile fluid discharge but Mr Ingoldby failed to spot the cause of the problem.

• Failing to take appropriate action when a male cancer patient in his mid-sixties suffered complications after an initial operation. The patient later died.

• Failing to order a biopsy, ultrasound or CT scan for a 61-year-old male patient, and failing to recognise the man's spleen had been damaged during surgery.

• Failing to remove a gall bladder during surgery on a male patient. This triggered a series of complications.

• Failing to act in the best interests of a 75-year-old male patient with gastric cancer, who died nine days after surgery.

• Failings in the case of a 64-year-old man who collapsed and died from internal bleeding shortly after surgery - perhaps caused when a tie placed over a vein during the operation slipped.

Mr Ingoldby was sacked in July last year following numerous complaints from patients and their families.

The hearing continues.