GMC told wrong country of rogue surgeon's removal from register

The UK doctors' regulator did not tell Libyan authorities for eight years that a rogue NHS Tayside surgeon, who is now operating in the African country, had removed himself from its register, an inquiry has heard.

Sam Eljamel, who is believed to have harmed hundreds of patients, was suspended by NHS Tayside in 2013 and has been working as a surgeon in Libya since at least 2020.

He voluntarily removed himself from the General Medical Council (GMC) register in 2015, avoiding an investigation that could have led to a disciplinary erasure.

The inquiry was told that the GMC had twice mistakenly informed the Saudi Arabian authorities instead of the Libyans, an error they did not realise until 2023.

Removal from the GMC register meant that Eljamel could no longer practice in the UK.

The inquiry was told that Eljamel was granted voluntary erasure from the GMC register rather than face a fitness to practice hearing.

This was due in part to Eljamel stating his intention to retire, and family issues, including the death of his son.

GMC chief executive Charlie Massey told the inquiry that "relevant regulators" should have been notified of Eljamel's voluntary erasure from the register.

However, a "human error" relating to an earlier search for El-Fateh, where Eljamel had qualified in Libya, led to a staff member discovering a result for El-Fateh in Saudi Arabia instead.

This led to the Saudi Arabian authorities twice being informed of Eljamel's erasure from the register instead of the Libyans.

He said this was "a mistake which we very much are sorry for."

Massey said that the GMC did not realise the error until "much later."

He said: "I think it was 2023, at which point we notified the Libyan regulator.

"But we received no correspondence back from them to acknowledge that or demonstrate that they're aware of us having written to them."

Massey said there was no evidence that Eljamel had ever notified the GMC that he had applied to work outside the UK.

Eljamel was a consultant NHS neurosurgeon at Ninewells Hospital from 1995 until his suspension in December 2013.

His suspension followed an independent review by the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS), commissioned by NHS Tayside in June of that year.

Massey said that he would have expected NHS Tayside to have have raised concerns over Eljamel "at a much earlier point in time."

He said that the first time the GMC had any record of "Eljamel's name coming up in conversations" with the health board was on the day of his suspension.

Massey said that if a health board was considering initiating a Royal College of Surgeons review, he would be "very surprised if there weren't conversations with our employee liaison advisors before that review was commissioned."

The inquiry was told that NHS Tayside had received three complaints about Eljamel in 2011, including an allegation of wrong site surgery, where a procedure is carried out on the wrong part of the body.

Four complaints were received in 2012, with a further "flurry of complaints" received in early 2013.

Massey said: "Certainly at some stage during all of that, even then there would be a sense I imagine from (NHS) Tayside there was a level of seriousness in the complaints.

"Particularly when they relate to wrong site surgery, that would have merited a conversation with my fitness to practice team."

Massey said that "knowing what we know now" it was "obviously a case that I'd like to have seen completed through a disciplinary erasure through a tribunal."

He acknowledged that "we've made various mistakes" and apologised to the patients and families affected.

Massey said: "(These are) both in terms of those procedural errors in terms of our notification of the wrong overseas regulator and the fact that we failed to correct that when we could and should have done."

The inquiry before Lord Weir continues.