Ian Sollom and Families Affected by Addenbrookes’ Surgeon Meet with Patient Safety Minister

Ian Sollom, alongside families affected by disgraced Addenbrookes’ paediatric orthopaedic surgeon Kuldeep Stohr, met with the Minister for Patient Safety to demand action following the damning Verita report into failures at Cambridge University Hospitals Trust. 

Ian, Liberal Democrat MP for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, was joined at the meeting by his constituents, Lynne whose daughter Tammy was operated on by Ms Stohr, and Natasha and her daughter Neave, who is now wheelchair-bound and unable to communicate since being operated on. The families told Minister Zubir Ahmed how their children’s lives and their own had been impacted by the surgeon and how they hope no other family has to go through their experience. 

Hundreds of children were treated by or operated on by Ms Stohr with many of them suffering physical and mental injury as a result. The recent Verita report into the scandal highlighted CUH's failure to act on a 2016 external review (The Hill Report) of the surgeon's work and laid bare the lack of accountability and governance structure at the Trust. This meant the surgeon was allowed to continue operating on children – many of them with special needs – for a further nine years, despite concerns raised by staff in 2015 which were ignored. 

The Minister committed to maintaining a ‘direct line of sight’ to the Trust’s action plan implementation, identifying clinical governance as a key concern and immediate priority for change. He will work directly with NHS East of England's clinical manager to oversee the reforms. 

Ian said: “I’m pleased that Natasha and Lynn had the opportunity to talk to the Minister face-to-face and explain to him how their daughters’ lives – and their own – have been devastated by this surgeon and by the Trust’s failure to listen to whistleblowers who tried to protect their children. 

“The Minister is taking direct personal oversight of CUH's governance reforms. This level of ministerial attention is significant, and I'll be working with the families to monitor the Trust's and the Department’s progress carefully in the coming months.” 

Ian also secured a commitment that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will independently provide protected channels for whistleblowers at CUH to come forward, separate from the Trust itself. 

The Verita report found that whistleblowers who raised concerns about Ms Stohr were "bullied, intimidated and threatened" by senior managers and did not feel safe using Freedom to Speak Up Guardians – the national whistleblowing network introduced following the Mid Staffs hospital scandal. 

Ian said: "The families wanted assurances that the staff who tried to raise the alarm will be protected. The Minister has committed that DHSC will handle this independently of the Trust, as new legislation on NHS whistleblowers is developed. 

"Health Secretary Wes Streeting has pledged that NHS managers who silence whistleblowers have no place in the health service. The Minister must ensure that promise is kept at CUH." 

Ian also raised that clinical governance is an issue in other parts of the Trust beyond the paediatric orthopaedic division, and that similar patterns are emerging at other NHS trusts. 

Ian said: "The families want to ensure this doesn't happen to other children. Staff have told me governance problems exist elsewhere at CUH. We're also seeing similar failures at places like the John Radcliffe in Oxford. This needs addressing urgently across the NHS, not just at Cambridge."