Dr Veronica Varney worked as a respiratory consultant at the site in Carshalton.

Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, has already established 42% of 216 patients she treated for interstitial lung disease weren’t referred to specialists, 30% received no care at all, and 20% were not properly investigated diagnostically. Instead of referring patients to specialist teams, the trust said she acted unilaterally and often provided outdated care that ultimately caused harm.

Concerns were first raised in 2019 and Dr Varney left the trust in 2023.

She was formally referred to the General Medical Council in September 2024, with interim restrictions placed on her practice.

The Royal College of Physicians’ review published today was designed to gauge the full extent of the harm she caused.

A representative for Dr Varney said she had no comment on the report.

The report says: “The review team concluded that in a substantial number of cases, [the consultant’s] delays to or deviations from guidelines-based care potentially contributed to the patients’ irreversible lung damage, poor quality of life or premature death.”

Out of 28 cases, 18 were graded “unsatisfactory”, eight as “room for improvement”, and two were judged to be “good practice”.

Our reporter Sadiya Chowdhury is outside the hospital in Wrythe Lane.

Statement from Epsom and St Helier University Trust.

In 2024, we commissioned the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) to convene an independent panel of experts and undertake a formal review of patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) under the care of a consultant at St Helier Hospital, who is no longer employed by the Trust.

The RCP has now completed its review and has provided its report to us.

Dr Richard Jennings, Group Chief Medical Officer, said: “I offer my sincere apologies to our patients and their families for the harm this has caused – the care they received fell far below what should have been given.

“While the Royal College of Physicians’ report makes it clear that patients were significantly harmed, it also expresses confidence in the changes we had already made to make the service safe, and we have accepted and acted on all of their recommendations. We have contacted patients or their families to share the findings, apologise, and offer further support.”

ILD is a broad group of serious lung conditions. The majority of patients are diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, which has a life expectancy of about 3-3.5 years.