When surgeon Yaser Jabbar (43) told the parents of a six-year-old about the procedure he was planning to perform on their child, he had their full trust.

They didn’t realise that Jabbar’s colleagues were concerned about his methods and feared that he was harming the children in his care, according to The Sunday Times.

In July 2021, Jabbar operated on the boy at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in north London, which operates on hundreds of children with illnesses or congenital deformities every year.

In the procedure, the bone is surgically broken and then metal rings, known as Ilizarov frames, and tension wires are inserted to hold the bone in place. Over the next few months, the fracture is slowly widened by a few millimetres, allowing new bone to develop and fill the hole.

Jabbar performed a number of such surgeries, and was referred to as the “frame man” at the hospital.

Immediately after the operation, the boy’s father, who asked to remain anonymous, realised that something was wrong.

– In all of our meetings prior to the surgery, we were told that a certain type of frame would be used to help with rotation and extension, but when the procedure was performed, a completely different type of frame was used. We were never told why, but it seemed odd.

– After a couple of days, the frame came loose and my child was in a lot of pain. You could feel the bone in the leg, which felt out of position, like it was out of alignment and sticking out the wrong way. We feared something was wrong, but when we brought it up with Jabbar, he was very dismissive and said everything was fine.

The child wasn’t the only one who was mistreated. GOSH has launched an urgent investigation into 721 children treated by Jabbar in the orthopaedic department. The investigation is being conducted by five surgical experts. The investigation is expected to be completed within 18 months.

37 cases have been reviewed so far, showing that 22 children have suffered some degree of injury, with 13 of them classified as “serious injury” – meaning they are likely to suffer lifelong damage. The youngest victim was only four months old.

At least one child has had a leg amputated due to Jabbar’s mistreatment. Another child is at risk of amputation if surgeons at other hospitals are unable to save the limb. Other children have ended up with different leg lengths, some as much as 20 centimetres apart. Many suffer from chronic pain for years after the operation.

Jabbar resigned from his position at GOSH last September after an 11-month sabbatical with full pay, which was agreed after questions were raised about his behaviour.

Serious questions are being raised about the culture, leadership and approach to safety at GOSH, which is recognised worldwide as one of the best children’s hospitals.

Among other things, external experts reportedly told GOSH that Jabbar was using the wrong frames on the children, but hospital management ignored the warnings. Several of the children had to undergo new, painful surgeries to correct the mistakes and injuries Jabbar had inflicted on them.

The investigation reveals that managers at the hospital failed to respond to whistleblowers’ concerns about Jabbar, who has now left the UK and is listed as working in Dubai.

In Dubai he is referred to as the “best paediatric orthopaedic surgeon in Dubai”.

Several other employees voiced their concerns to management.

– We asked for meetings with the managers, but they never responded. It’s frustrating, you feel helpless, one of them told the Sunday Times.

The report concludes that even alerts from Jabbar’s colleagues were ignored by the hospital’s management.

According to the report, management at GOSH had “manifestly failed in its responsibility” to have proper governance in place, adding:

“A number of staff raised concerns more than once, both verbally and in writing, and were met with either a lack of decisive action or, in some cases, no response at all, and on other occasions, staff felt that managers failed to take responsibility and placed blame elsewhere.”

When parents tried to complain, they too were rejected. The Royal College of Surgeons criticised the board of GOSH, saying it needed to improve the “manner and tone” in which it responded to complaints.

“This poor culture also extended to the leadership and governance of the organisation and it seemed that those sitting on the board and at management level were either not very involved or proactive in relation to these issues or they did not have oversight of them. There was little or no oversight from department to board.”

Great Ormond Street Hospital is the largest centre for paediatric care in the UK and is renowned for being at the forefront of global medical research. The scandal is yet another example of the utter decay of the UK’s NHS.