Doctor ‘covered up botched cancer surgery’

AN English doctor tried to cover up a botched operation which led to the death of a woman patient, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.

Steven Walker deliberately lied to the family of Dorothy McPhee, 71, by telling them a cancer operation on her liver had "gone well", alleged Rebecca Poulet QC, prosecuting.

But Mrs McPhee was in fact dying and had lost 18 litres of blood during and after the seven-hour operation at the Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

Mr Walker, a consultant surgeon, telephoned Mrs McPhee's husband Donald immediately after she left theatre barely alive, said Ms Poulet.

He told him it had been a "bloody operation" and she might have to return to the hospital some time in the future to have swabs removed.

"Otherwise the operation had gone well," said Ms Poulet. He had written in his operation notes that Mrs McPhee left the theatre in a satisfactory state.

But when Mrs McPhee's daughter rang the hospital she was told her mother was in a critical state.

The family rushed to the hospital and got there just before she died less than two hours after the operation, Ms Poulet added.

A nursing sister had then heard Mr Walker tell the family that Mrs McPhee had left the theatre with "reasonable blood pressure".

Ms Poulet said: "This was so far from the truth that the sister compiled a critical incident report."

Walker had made similar comments in a letter to the family GP. "We say this was deliberately deceptive," Ms Poulet added.

Mr Walker, 47, of Camberley, Surrey, denies two charges of manslaughter of two patients who died following operations, theft of an operations log and perverting justice.

The case continues.