NHS gave advisory job to gynaecologist sacked as botcher

A disgraced senior gynaecologist was given a job in the National Health Service advising on patient care months after being struck off for botching operations.

In an embarrassment for the Department of Health, Richard Neale managed to get a job in a hospital only weeks after the Government opened an inquiry into why the "rude and incompetent botcher" was employed by the NHS in the first place.

Yesterday, his victims reacted angrily to the "frightening" and "ludicrous" news of his appointment.

Mr Neale, now 58, left many women bleeding, in agony, incontinent or unable to bear children. He was incompetent and negligent and performed unnecessary procedures for which he failed to obtain consent, a disciplinary panel of the General Medical Council decided. After finding him guilty of 35 out of 36 charges, the council struck him off the medical register for serious professional misconduct in July 2000.

Yet, in August 2001 – within weeks of the Government announcing an inquiry into Mr Neale's initial appointment in Britain after being twice barred from clinical work in Canada – he was given a position advising on patient care at Wythenshawe Hospital, south Manchester.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "We are appalled to hear that Richard Neale has been re-employed in the NHS.

"The chief medical officer will be looking into the wider implications of the failures and errors in judgement that led Mr Neale to be appointed."

Sheila Wright-Hogeland, a founder of the patient group that campaigned to have Mr Neale struck off, commented: "It is disgraceful that they've allowed him back anywhere near a hospital. It is totally deplorable. To have this man telling other doctors how they should be practising is unbelievable.

"He just keeps on popping up. It has got to be an embarrassment to the Department of Health and to the General Medical Council.

"There is a need for urgent legislation to stop this ridiculous situation happening again."

The former Conservative leader William Hague said: "This is almost beyond belief after everything that has happened and it seems that Richard Neale was being employed in Manchester even while we were debating his scandalous behaviour on the floor of the House of Commons."

News that Mr Neale had been employed for nine months by the South Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust emerged as he wrote a defensive article in the European Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Reproductive Biology, in which he compared himself to a Good Samaritan and claimed he was the victim of a smear campaign.

Mr Neale said he accepted that in a "tiny fraction of my patients my level of competence was less than I would have wished" but added: "I do not accept that I was treated fairly or that justice was done."

He concluded: "I present myself, humbly, as a flawed doctor – perhaps more sinned against than sinner."

Yesterday the hospital trust confirmed that he had been working on a temporary contract, which was terminated in April this year.

Professor David Harnden, the trust chairman, said: "He held a junior administrative post in the clinical audit department for nine months. He had no clinical responsibilities and no contact with patients.

"An investigation has been carried out into this matter and appropriate disciplinary action has been taken," Professor Harnden added.

Campaigners are awaiting a date for an independent inquiry. Graham Maloney, adviser to the 250-strong victims' group, said: "It just proves checks are virtually non-existent. It's taken us years to get to the stage where there's an inquiry into his original employment by the NHS and they've gone and employed him again. It's absolute madness.

"The only thing he should ever be doing in a hospital is pushing a broom, and that's debatable."

Mr Neale, of Langthorpe, near Boroughbridge, who worked for nearly 15 years in Britain, primarily at the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, was unavailable for comment.