Abuse claim patients sue doctors’ surgeries

The surgery practice partners of two separate GPs are being sued because of allegations that they knew but failed to stop a fellow family doctor from abusing patients over a number of years.

In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, Channel 4 News has learned that two sets of women are seeking compensation after they were subjected to intimate examinations carried out without their permission. The cases involve two separate GPs, one in Surrey and another one in Brighton.

Unfortunately what these cases show is that it is not uncommon for GPs to be abusing patients and for their partners to know about it and for nothing to be done to protect patients. Solicitor Sarah Harman

The Brighton GP, Rodney Tate, was struck off the medical register last year after he was found to have carried out intimate examinations on seven female patients without their consent.

Documents show that his practice partners at what was then called the Old Steine Surgery had held a number of meetings as far back as the mid to late 1990s to discuss complaints by female patients about his inappropriate behaviour. Tate did not leave the practice until he took voluntary retirement in 2002. He was struck off the medical register in June 2009.

Statement from Brighton and Hove Primary Care Trust
Patient safety is a priority for NHS Brighton and Hove and we have systems in place to ensure that any concerns about health professionals in the city can be raised with us in confidence.

Surrey GP, Adil Shareef, was sent to prison in July after being found guilty of assaulting five women – four of them his patients. He had told one of them not to tell or they’ll all want it.

One of his patients, speaking anonymously, said: “He is a sexual predator and 18 months in prison is not long enough. It is that simple,” she said. “He targeted, he preyed on vunerable women, who he knew wouldn’t be believed or would be doubted.”

Abuse strikes at the heart of the doctor-patient relationship. But these doctors – Tate and Shareef – were not working alone in their practices. They had partners – other GPs.

Statement from Surrey Primary Care Trust
We have been fully involved in this case and are satisfied that the necessary action was taken by both practices as soon as they became aware of concerns, and we suspended Dr Shareef in 2008 from working as a GP.

The solicitor, Sarah Harman, representing the two groups of women, said that while there are clear General Medical Council good practice guidelines, the legal obligations in a partnership are not clear. She said she hoped the action would clarify the situation.

“We are trying to establish is a clear legal duty of partners to each other in the practice in the hope that it will be safer for all patients who attend their GPs,” Ms Harman said.

“It is what any patient from any GP practice can expect when they go to the GP, that they will be safe. Unfortunately what these cases show is that it is not uncommon for GPs to be abusing patients and for their partners to know about it and for nothing to be done to protect patients.”

The patient who spoke to us anonymously was the first of Shareef’s victims. Visiting him in his surgery for a urinary tract infection in 2003, he performed an intimate examination without wearing gloves. The next day she complained to the practice.

“It was absolutely horrific, walking into a room with Dr Shareef there, with three other people, the practice manager the chief pracitioner and the doctor that trained him. And walking into a room and feeling you have to prove yourself, and being judged by these people, was really really intimidating.”

But the partners there at that meeting later wrote to her promising to monitor Shareef and that there would always be a chaperone. It ws only in 2009, when she read of his arrest that she discovered other women had been abused. Then, at the court case, she also discovered that the practice had not done as they had promised.

They failed in every single part and I have had to live with some sort of guilt. Patient

It later became clear that Shareef had left the Old Cottage Hospital surgery in 2004 with a reference from there. He moved to the Fountain Practice in nearby Ewell, where he practiced until his arrest. The legal action is being taken only against the partners who were there at the time and working with Shareef.

Neither of the practices would comment because of the legal action but NHS Surrey, the primary care trust, said: “We have been fully involved in this case and are satisfied that the necessary action was taken by both practices as soon as they became aware of concerns.”

Shareef’s patient said that in the end she feels guilty. “They had a duty of care to ensure men like Shareef don’t abuse their patients,” she said.

“They failed in every single part and I have had to live with some sort of guilt that because maybe I should have pursued my complaint further. He went on to abuse those other ladie. Ultimately the pain that these other women went through is on their shoulders.”