A South London hospital is to review the care of more than 200 patients after an investigation uncovered serious concerns about treatment by a former consultant, including cases where patients may have suffered avoidable harm.
St Helier Hospital is to review the care of more than 200 patients treated by a former consultant after an independent investigation found that her treatment may have contributed to three premature deaths and caused permanent or long-term harm to 12 others.
The Royal College of Physicians found serious concerns over the care provided by former consultant Veronica Varney, including advice given to patients with interstitial lung disease that was not supported by medical evidence. It also included telling some patients to avoid rapeseed oil, flu and Covid-19 vaccinations.
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) review has prompted the hospital trust to launch a wider review of every ILD patient treated by Varney since 2019, while lawyers representing affected families are calling for further scrutiny and faster answers over what happened.
Varney was suspended from practising medicine on an interim basis by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service last week. She had already been barred from seeing patients at the Sutton hospital in January 2023 and remains subject to ongoing regulatory proceedings by the General Medical Council (GMC).
Varney treated patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD), a group of more than 200 conditions that cause inflammation and scarring of the lung tissue. An RCP review of her care, commissioned by the trust and published last month, examined 28 cases involving patients treated between 2019 and 2022.
It found that Varney had frequently recommended off-label treatments and given advice without an evidence base. Some patients were advised against having flu and Covid-19 vaccinations, while others were told to avoid rapeseed oil.
Lawyers representing the affected families are now calling for further scrutiny of the care.
Three patients may have died prematurely because they were not given treatments that could have extended their lives, according to the review. A further 12 patients suffered permanent or long-term harm, while seven missed out on treatments that could have improved their quality of life or spared them further procedures.
In one case, a patient’s worsening symptoms were attributed to them being “unfit”, with dietary advice given instead of medical treatment. Varney told investigators that she had concerns about complications and side effects from approved drugs and preferred to try alternative medicines first.
The trust had previously contacted all affected ILD patients in 2024 and said their care had been reviewed by a specialist team of doctors and nurses to ensure they were receiving the appropriate treatment.
Following the RCP’s findings, however, the trust has now committed to a wider retrospective review of all patients treated for ILD by Varney since 2019. A further 203 patient cases will be examined.
The trust said the review would follow the RCP’s methodology and be “thorough, transparent and clinically robust”. It is expected to take between 12 and 24 months.
Dr Richard Jennings, group chief medical officer at the trust, said the organisation had accepted all 19 recommendations made by the RCP.
He said: “The Royal College of Physicians’ independent review looked at a sample of patients and made recommendations, all of which we have accepted and acted on – we will now undertake a comprehensive review of the care provided to all patients treated for ILD by this doctor since 2019.
“This will follow the RCP’s methods to ensure it is thorough, transparent and clinically robust. We have written to our patients, or their families, to explain this, to offer our sincere apologies for the failings in care described by the RCP, and to invite them to discuss any concerns they may have with us.”
However, solicitors representing some of the families have called for greater scrutiny of the trust and for the investigation process to be expedited for affected families.
Renu Daly, senior consultant at Setfords and the trust’s former head of legal services, who represents more than ten families affected by care at St Helier, said: “Dr Varney’s suspension by the GMC is a significant development, but it should not have taken this long.
“It is now more than a month since the RCP’s independent review was published, and this delay shows exactly why families cannot simply wait for the system to police itself. When investigations and regulatory action move this slowly, patients and relatives have to keep pressing for answers.
“As the hospital trust’s former head of legal services, I saw first-hand how weak internal structures can be when concerns about clinical practice are raised.
“The families I represent have already waited too long. They deserve to know whether poor care caused avoidable harm, why those failings were allowed to continue, and what is being done to make sure this never happens again.”
Concerns about Varney’s practice had previously been raised by trainee doctors and through the trust’s whistleblowing system between 2019 and 2022. The trust later referred her to the GMC.
The RCP also identified wider failings, partly attributed to strained relationships between clinical leaders, separate respiratory departments, weak routes for escalating concerns and disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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