Spire Healthcare’s new compensation fund for patients of disgraced breast surgeon, Ian Paterson

It's now more than four years since disgraced breast surgeon, Ian Paterson, was convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

It was initially thought that Spire Healthcare had recalled all of Paterson's victims. However, an Independent Inquiry into the matter found that the initial recall was insufficient and called for a further recall of all Paterson's patients. Spire Healthcare ("Spire") has announced that they're recalling additional victims of Ian Paterson and have set up a new fund to award compensation to those further victims.

Spire has confirmed that they started the second recall process in December 2020, including some patients who had previously not been contacted, and that the review is ongoing, but we believe they have already identified that some additional patients were harmed by Paterson.

Slater and Gordon were appointed fund managers during the 2017 action and are pleased to confirm they've now been appointed once again to manage the second compensation fund.

Emma Doughty, Head of Medical Negligence at Slater and Gordon, who ran the successful 2017 action, through which hundreds of Paterson's patients received compensation, said: “We always suspected that there were many more victims than those included in the initial recall. Even after the closure of the compensation fund in 2018, we continued to be contacted by people who also believed they had fallen victim to this man’s crimes”.

“We welcome the fact that Spire is finally recalling all of Paterson’s patients and that they are providing a means of compensating those patients. We can now continue on with the work we did in 2017 to ensure justice for Paterson’s victims and we can shortly start compensating them from the new scheme. We would urge all potential patients of Paterson to come forward as it will be your last chance to do so.”

"Although Paterson remains behind bars where he belongs, this is still another reminder that more work is needed to ensure nothing like this can happen again. My sincere hope is that the second recall provides a platform for a more transparent investigation which will help mend the broken system which allowed this.”

If you're a former patient of Ian Paterson and think you may have a claim, register your details today and one of Slater and Gordon's specialists will contact you.

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