A letter of apology from County Durham & Darlington NHS Foundation Trust acknowledged patients’ harrowing experiences of poor care following an investigation spanning more than ten years.

The poor service within the breast care team provided by CDDFT led to many patients suffering delays in diagnosis of cancer, undergoing unnecessary surgical procedures, and in some cases cancer going completely undetected.

Prior to 2012, the CDDFT held the status of training centre for Breast Surgery Services but following reports of inadequate supervision of trainees and poor clinical governance, they have since lost this badge.

In 2018, the Northern Cancer Alliance (NCA) flagged the Trust as a regional and national outlier due to unusually high rates of benign lesion excision and re-excision which raised concerns about surgical decision making and the accuracy of diagnoses being made.

In July 2024, the NCA again flagged concerns about the services being provided by the NHS Trust and the Royal College of Surgeons was asked to conduct an independent review of breast services which was, at the time, under the care of Mr Amir Bhatti, the Clinical Lead of Breast Cancer Surgery.

123 individual cases of care had been reviewed, but an investigation conducted by the BBC identified 270 women who had been harmed. 45 of these patients were harmed moderately, 19 severely, including one who died. It is believed that there are thousands of women who could have been impacted by the poor care provided.

The Trust acknowledged that they were “far too slow to act” and agreed that governance, leadership, and cultural shortcoming led to avoidable harm and distress for many of their patients.

The Aubrey Report, published in November 2025, identified that external consultant breast surgeons had raised concerns back in 2021 about the high operative rate at the Newcastle Breast MDT meeting. Further, an Executive Medical Director of another NHS Trust had raised formal concerns over two patients treated within CDDFT who had been advised that they needed surgery, only to seek a second opinion from another Trust whom later found that surgery was not needed. These failures here by CDDFT would have led to two patients having unnecessary and invasive procedures, “exposing serious issues in decision making and oversight”. Despite these concerns, the care provided to patients continued to deteriorate.

The report further exposed “decade-long systemic failures” within the CDDFT and identified 37 recommendations, all of which have been considered and accepted by Trust.

Key findings of the report included:

  • Avoidable harm including delays in diagnoses of breast cancer, unnecessary mastectomies or removal of lymph nodes, and issues with informed consent.
  • Passive leadership, whereby the hospital board failed to challenge executives when concerns were raised
  • Staff being intimidated to speak up where there were concerns of unsafe practices
  • And the failure to follow national guidance, such as NICE guidelines.

Restrictions were imposed against Mr Bhatti while this investigation was conducted, and he was later prevented from carrying out any clinical practice over “concerns about his refusal to engage with retraining measures”, highlighting the extent of the issues with senior staff members at the Trust.

Durham Police have confirmed that they are now investigating the care provided to patients at the Hospital Trust, and are encouraging anybody who may be affected to report their concerns via their online portal which can be found here: Public Portal

How we can help:

Our Clinical Negligence Team has a wide breadth of experience in dealing with breast cancer claims. If you have questions around the care you received at County Durham & Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, please contact us for a chat.

You can contact our specialist Clinical Negligence Team in confidence by calling 0113 284 5000 or emailing clinneg@isonharrison.co.uk.

What we can help with: