{"id":807460,"date":"2026-10-19T10:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T10:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/807460\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T10:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T10:20:12","slug":"mystery-surgeon-identified-by-county-durham-nhs-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/807460\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Mystery’ surgeon identified by County Durham NHS trust"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n County Durham<\/a> and Darlington<\/a> NHS Foundation Trust previously said it did not know the identity of \u2018Mr Irfan\u2019,<\/a> who was recorded as assisting with a woman\u2019s breast cancer surgery in 2017.\n<\/p>\n

\n But chief executive Steve Russell told Durham County Council\u2019s Adult, Wellbeing and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Friday (October 16) that the trust now knows who he is.\n<\/p>\n

\n It follows an investigation by The Northern Echo<\/a> after a County Durham breast cancer patient discovered \u2018Mr Irfan\u2019 listed as assisting with her surgery in 2017.\n<\/p>\n

\n The woman, who does not wish to be named, said she could not remember meeting him and was unable to establish who he was.\n<\/p>\n

\n She previously said: \u201cI was just stunned. I had never spoken to this person or know who he is and no one I asked could give me answers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Responding to a question from Cllr Mark Wilkes, Mr Russell said: \u201cWe’d met with some women the previous week [before speaking to The Northern Echo], who raised this issue and we agreed to look into it, which is what we’re in the process of doing.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cSo we’ve identified the colleague. He was working at a local registrar trust, he worked there for a period of time.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cHe’s actually a member of the Association of Breast Surgeons, so he was training, which is not unusual.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \"ChiefChief executive of the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, Steve Russell (Image: Chris Booth)\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Russell also addressed questions surrounding HCM Medics Ltd, a company registered under the name of a \u2018Mr Irfan\u2019 which previously had an address at the doctors\u2019 accommodation block on the University Hospital of North Durham site.\n<\/p>\n

\n He told councillors: \u201cIn terms of the company that was registered, we’ve never paid any money to that company directly.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Speaking to The Northern Echo following the meeting, Mr Russell said the trust had “not identified any concerns,” with Mr Irfan.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe were trying to identify information about when he was working in the trust, what role he played and we have nearly completed that,” Mr Russell said.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe haven’t completed that. It won’t be very long.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n A Durham County Council meeting was told that Mr Irfan had been identified by county NHS board members. (R-L): Gill Hunt, chief nurse; Steve Russell, chief executive; Kelly Angus, deputy chief executive. (Image: THE NORTHERN ECHO)\n<\/p>\n

\n The questions emerged amid wider scrutiny of breast cancer care at the trust.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n Former breast surgery lead Amir Bhatti was barred from carrying out surgery in February 2025, however he is on sick leave and remains employed on full pay.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n An independent review led by governance expert Mary Aubrey identified a decade of missed warnings, ignored red flags and \u2018systemic failures\u2019, initially finding that 51 women had been harmed.\n<\/p>\n

\n The trust has since found that hundreds of patients were harmed, including 20 women who underwent unnecessary mastectomies.\n<\/p>\n

\n The trust board agreed last month to extend its patient review, which currently covers January 2023 to February 2025.\n<\/p>\n

\n The review will then examine cases from 2022 and work backwards year by year to 2015, potentially covering around 4,500 women.\n<\/p>\n

\n Documents suggest the review could take five years, meaning some women treated in 2015 may wait until 2031 for their cases to be examined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust previously said it did not know the identity of \u2018Mr Irfan\u2019,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-807460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}