Jailed surgeon Ian Paterson’s mastectomies inadequate – inquest

Mr Fatah, a consultant plastic surgeon, said after the four times he operated on Paterson’s patients following his surgery, he asked not to work with him any more.

“The way Paterson did the surgery, he used quite a large scalpel,” he told the inquest.

“So instead of actually defining the tissue layer between the skin and breast tissue, he just created a layer with the knife which meant there was no separation of the two entities to make sure the breast tissue had been removed.

“It was a quick sweep of the knife round the top and bottom of the breast and lifting it off the muscle.”

Mr Fatah told the lead breast surgeon at City Hospital, Martin Lee, about his concerns and Paterson was stopped from carrying out surgeries there, the inquest heard.

He also spoke with John Taylor, Paterson’s senior breast surgeon colleague at the trust where he worked, and suggested they should carry out an audit of the histology results of mastectomy specimens.