Nearly 100 children were harmed by a surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh), an independent review has found. Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Yaser Jabbar, who specialised in limb lengthening and reconstruction, treated 789 children between 2017 and 2022. The review concluded that 94 were specifically harmed as a result of his actions, with 91 of those having been operated on by Jabbar.
Of the affected children, 36 suffered severe harm, including delayed diagnosis or failed surgery; 39 experienced moderate harm; and 19 were mildly harmed, such as being given unnecessary general anaesthetic. Some children were left with one leg up to 20cm shorter than the other, chronic pain, or had a limb amputated that experts said could have been avoided. The review noted that 642 patients did not come to harm attributable to the surgeon.
Matthew Shaw, chief executive of Gosh, said the hospital was “profoundly sorry” and had made significant changes to the orthopaedic service to minimise future risks. “We know this comes too late for the families affected by this issue, but we are committed to ensuring our hospital is a better and safer place,” he said.
Jabbar, who now works in the United Arab Emirates, no longer has a licence to practise medicine in the UK. The review followed concerns raised by families and staff, leading to a previous Royal College of Surgeons inquiry. Gosh said it had implemented recommendations including better whistleblowing support and multidisciplinary reviews for surgical patients.
NHS England announced its own independent review, due to start in February, focusing on potential governance failures. Julia Reynolds, a solicitor representing affected families, criticised the hospital for not involving families enough, saying they were “treated as peripheral to the learning and remediation process”.
