Women 'traumatised' by breast cancer treatment at NHS trust

The BBC has learned that breast cancer patients in north-east England received unnecessary mastectomies, delayed diagnosis, and a lack of compassionate care. More than 200 cases are now being investigated at County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust (CDDFT) - 43 of these have been confirmed to involve significant risk. One death is also being examined. Women have told us that by surgery, they were left feeling butchered, while a leading expert says the trust's activities were "a textbook example of how not to do breast cancer prevention. In addition, we discovered that almost £6 million was paid out by the trust to clinics operated privately by the Trust's chief breast cancer surgeon.

Following complaints about the trust's services, medical records of nearly 1,600 patients treated since 2023 are now being reviewed. This week, an independent review into the operation of CDDFT, led by governance specialist Mary Aubrey, has been published.

According to the Aubrey study, persistent questions have been raised since 2012, when the trust lost its status as a training center for breast surgery services. It failed to respond quickly and evidence in the years that followed. Unsafe and outdated practices remained in the case. The CDDFT has apologised to

women and their families who have been affected by our substandard care

and has stated that "over the years, warning signs have been consistently missed or not followed.

Delays and scars

Kate Driver, 31, who lives in Chester-le-Street, is one of many people we interviewed who have been referred to by the CDDFT's breast cancer clinic. Kate discovered a lump in her right breast in the run-up to Christmas 2023. Her GP referred her to the Trust for an appointment with a consultant. Despite being an NHS consultation, it took place at a private clinic at Spire Hospital in Washington, where she was seen by Mr Amir Bhatti, the trust's clinical lead for breast surgery. He underwent a procedure called a fine needle aspiration (FNA), in which a sample of cells is extracted to test for cancer. FNA tests are not considered the best diagnostic method for breast biopsies because they can provide inadequate samples, increasing the likelihood of missed, incomplete, or delayed diagnoses. According to Kate's website, her test findings were supposed to be out in 48 hours. In fact, the result was inconclusive, and Kate had to wait several weeks before finding out she had breast cancer.

Waiting so long and having to chase everything up made it a hundred times worse than it needed to be,

Kate says.

I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. No one seemed to care because no one really cared because no-one was really concerned, and no one was really worried about it.

More bad news was to follow. Kate was told she would need a mastectomy, but she was advised that she should not have breast reconstruction at the same time because of her particular type of cancer.

They were going to completely remove my right breast and leave me with nothing,

she says. Kate sought a second opinion at another hospital in Newcastle, where she was told there was no reason why she should not have a breast reconstruction right away after her mastectomy. She chose to be treated there instead. The County Durham and Darlington NHS trust has apologised to Kate, saying that her care

fell below acceptable standards. She lodged a formal complaint about Mr Bhatti's treatment, which she says left her traumatized. The clinic's patients' care, according to Spire Healthcare, was the responsibility of CDDFT to provide the clinic''s treatment and follow-up care. Mr Bhatti told us he was unable to comment on particular cases due to patient confidentiality, and patients were encouraged to contact the trust directly. According to studies from 2024, nearly half of women diagnosed with breast cancer at the County Durham trust had a mastectomy. According to 2022 parliamentary results released by the charity Breast Cancer Now, the UK average was around 27%. In addition, only 7. A 5% of mastectomies treated by CDDFT were followed by immediate breast reconstruction, much less than the national average of 25%. Dawn Gillott is another breast cancer patient whose care at the hospital is being investigated. She told us she had no choice but mastectomy:

I felt like I didn't have a choice. You're having this and that's all there is to it.

She claims she has been left with a big scar that has left her feeling

butchered.

I can't look in the mirror after a bath because the scar is just a constant reminder that it's horrible.

The surgery has also left Dawn in constant pain across her chest and armpit. Was my mastectomy necessary? she reflects. "Maybe it wasn't. Maybe I could have had a lumpectomy.

An 'overly generous' arrangement?

More than half of the patients who were referred to CDDFT for breast cancer screening or urgent care between 2022 and 2024 were - like Kate - and were first sent to one of two private two-week clinics paid for by the NHS. Amir Bhatti owned these clinics, and he served as the chairman of one of the companies behind them, Durham Surgical Services. The companies were paid on a per-patient, or per-appointment basis, a scheme that the BBC has discovered that the trust spent nearly £6 million between 2019 and 2025. Some employees, who were interviewed for a Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) study into medical and care at the trust, was deemed overly generous by this arrangement, which was released earlier this year. The clinics were largely operated on an out-of-hours basis, seeing patients in the evenings and at weekends. The RCS raised questions about the high rate of appointments, saying that it was not unprecedented for one clinic to run until 23:30.

Obviously there was a motivation to see as many people as possible as a result of the per capita compensation,

Prof Ian Fentiman, emeritus professor of surgical oncology at King's College London, says.

A lack of compassion

Breast cancer survivors have also reported reports of a lack of compassion and care at the hospital, both in its clinics and hospitals. Catriona McEvoy, a woman from Stanley, Durham, told us she felt the doctors were treating women

like a conveyor belt. She was shocked by one doctor's reaction during a hospital visit after she told him her breast had been infected after a lumpectomy. She claims that the doctor did not speak to her, offered her pain killers, or asking her permission, and cut her breast to drain the infected area.

There was no dignity in any of it,

Catriona says. We contacted the doctor who Catriona claims underwent this procedure, but he declined to comment. He is now under surveillance, according to the trust, and he has told the BBC that he is now in danger. In the Royal College of Surgeons' study, serious questions regarding breast surgery's speed and quality were identified.

Some surgical procedures seemed to be carried out with a great deal of urgency,

it says. They included a mastectomy and lymph node procedures in 28 minutes, as well as an excision of benign thickened breast tissue in ten minutes,

which the review team considered to have been unnecessary. In other words, repeat operations, the RCS also noted

a very high re-excision rate. According to Prof. Fentiman, the RCS study was

an appalling indictmentof athird-ratebreast clinic service.In every way, things were being done wrongly," he says. It came as a result of two other critical studies into the CDDFT's breast care service. Multiple questions regarding breast surgery were raised during the CDDFT's internal NHS Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) study in 2019. Kathryn Burn, the trust's executive director of nursing, told the BBC that the issues in the study were discussed, but that no further action was taken. The GIRFT study, as well as a 2024 study conducted by a team of experts at the Northern Cancer Alliance, was not released until the BBC made a Freedom of Information request.

'Not good enough'

The important thing to do.I'm deeply sorry that women who have been cared for in our breast services have been let down by us,

says Steve Russell, who was named chief executive of County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust in September 2025.

I can only imagine the agony and agonization that has been caused to the individuals and their families, as well as the loss of trust and confidence in us as an organization.

It's true to say that there were a number of missed opportunities. It was not strong enough, and it is not good enough that we were too late to act on the facts that was available.

I'm determined to make changes so that it doesn't happen again.

A new interim chair of the trust has been appointed as well as a new CEO. NHS England has informed us that it will

continue to assist the new leadership and partner organisations to make the necessary changes. Mr Bhatti said in a tweet that he was disappointed not to be allowed to comment on the RCS's preliminary findings. It contained some factual inaccuracies, which he believed led to erroneous conclusions, he told the BBC. He also told us that

serving the best interests of all our patients is of utmost importance

and that,

we learn from this and make the appropriate changes and improvements

when things go wrong. Earlier this year, the trust began using Mr Bhatti's out-of-hours clinics. He is no longer the clinical lead of the breast service, treating breast cancer patients, or performing surgery, though further investigations are ongoing.

Mr Bhatti has been raising questions about the adequacy of equipment in the breast cancer service since May 2021,

his spokesperson told the BBC. He looks forward to working with all those concerned in any way that is appropriate. "BBC Action Line has a directory of organisations that may be able to assist you if you, or someone you know has been affected by cancer.