Dozens of surgeons who have been struck off from the UK’s medical register are still practising, MailOnline can reveal.
There are instances where surgeons who have been involved in serious misconduct, leading to severe consequences like death or life-altering injuries for their patients, are still performing surgeries on individuals who are unaware and vulnerable across various countries.
Some of these cases have revealed outrageous acts such as sexual misconduct within the workplace, discharging patients while leaving medical instruments inside them, or mistakenly removing the wrong body parts.
It comes after MailOnline revealed in September that disgraced orthopaedic surgeon Dr Yaser Jabbar continues to operate on children in Dubai.
Here MailOnline takes a look at where some of the UK’s most infamous doctors to be struck off are now.
Dr Yaser Jabbar
One specific example is Yaser Jabbar, a 43-year-old residing in Dubai, who not only boasts about his skills at conferences but also continues to conduct surgeries on children at the Clemenceau Medical Center and other orthopedic hospitals like Orthocure.
A teenage boy was forced to have his leg amputated after he felt his bone ‘snap’ just months after surgeon Yaser Jabbar operated on it
Orthopaedic surgeon Yaser Jabbar is feared to have left dozens of children with life-changing injuries while treating more than 700 patients at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Jabbar, 43, has left children with different leg lengths and even requiring leg amputations as a result of botched treatments until he was suspended in 2022.
He is also accused of carrying out an unknown number of unnecessary operations.
The hospital is now reviewing every child treated by Jabbar. In September it was revealed that out of just 37 children assessed so far, 22 of them have come to some degree of harm with 13 classed as severe harm.
Facing a storm of complaints in the UK, Jabbar has since moved to Dubai where he continues to operate on unsuspecting patients.
He has not held a licence to practise medicine in the UK since January 2024.
MailOnline previously revealed he was employed by hospitals there, as well as boasting online of attending conferences and giving speeches about his orthopaedic ‘expertise’.
Dr Sam Eljamel
Former NHS Tayside surgeon Sam Eljamel harmed dozens of patients as a neurosurgery specialist
Jules Rose (centre right) joins other campaigners and victims, in a demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, Edinburgh in February
Former NHS Tayside surgeon Sam Eljamel harmed dozens of patients as a neurosurgery specialist, leaving some with life-changing injuries.
In one case, he operated on campaigner Jules Rose and removed her tear duct instead of a brain tumour. Other patients were left on the brink of death or facing paralysis.
He was eventually suspended in 2013 before removing himself from the medical register and moving to Libya, where he continues to operate while boasting of his time in Britain.
A public inquiry into Eljamel’s practise was announced by the Scottish government last year, with campaigners estimating he may have harmed as many as 200 patients.
But in war-torn Libya the surgeon is now operating again, featuring heavily in advertising for Al Nahda hospital.
Dr Ajit Pothen
Dr Ajit Joe Pothen was already suspended in the Netherlands when he was hired by a UK hospital – before discharging a patient who died hours later
Dr Ajit Joe Pothen was employed by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust in 2017 despite already being suspended by a hospital in the Netherlands.
The Dutch consultant was said to have provided ‘misleading information’ in his application for the role while under investigation by the national regulator in relation to his work as a head and neck surgeon at the University Medical Center (UMC) in Utrecht.
He was suspended just days after beginning his role in February 2017 after discharging a patient who died hours later.
The patient presented to hospital with ‘significant risk’ and problems breathing, but Pothen failed to speak to nursing staff about their condition and sent them home. They died later that night.
He later struck off the medical register, but is now working in private practise in Umkirch, Germany.
Despite being suspended just days into his NHS employment, Pothen claims he ‘completed his specialist training in Essen and Nottingham (UK)’.
Online reviews of Pothen at his new practise in Germany describe him as ‘arrogant’, ‘aggressive’ and ‘condescending’.
Dr Luigi Angelini
Dr Luigi Angelini made ‘wholly inappropriate’ decisions in emergency appendix surgeries, with one scrub nurse refusing to hand him another instrument midway through an operation
Luigi Angelini, formerly a surgeon at Southend Hospital, was struck off the medical register after making ‘wholly inappropriate’ decisions that carried ‘significant risk’ to patients during multiple emergency appendix operations.
The doctor, who was educated in Italy and went on to work at King’s College Hospital before being struck off, forced fellow doctors to make extreme decisions in order to prevent further harm to patients.
In one surgery, a theatre nurse refused to give Angelini any more instruments until another surgeon took over, and in a second he instructed another surgeon to remove tissue from the patient’s body despite a dispute over whether it was actually their appendix.
He also lied to employers about having a clean record despite being sacked by Southend Hospital and a 2008 tribunal which criticised his ‘inadequate, inappropriate, and irresponsible’ care.
But after being struck off, Angelini simply moved to Dubai where he continues to carry out surgery including appendix, liver and colon removals.
His Facebook page proudly boasts he was a consultant bariatric surgeon at Al Zahra Hospital, with no mention of his time in the UK.
Online records show he is now employed by the Chaslu Dubai Wellbeing Clinic.
Dr Anjan Kumar Banerjee
Dr Anjan Banerjee was twice found guilty of serious misconduct yet was allowed to return to UK surgery – and was even awarded an MBE
Surgeon Anjan Kumar Banerjee was struck off the medical register after being found to have falsified medical research in order to obtain a degree from the University of London.
Banerjee submitted samples of his own urine in the place of 12 healthy adults, and used the fraudulent data in his research.
He was also found guilty of serious professional misconduct for financial dishonesty and was removed from the register in 2002.
Banerjee even lied to patients about waiting list times and was prevented on several occasions from carrying out surgery at King’s College London due to concerns over his skills and decision-making.
But under GMC rules, he was able to apply to re-enter the register five years later and was quickly reinstated as a practising surgeon.
Despite twice being found guilty of serious misconduct, he resumed operating soon afterwards under a different name, Swapu Banerjee.
He was even awarded an MBE for services to ‘patient safety’ in 2014 – although this was eventually rescinded months later.
He said at the time he was ‘really proud’ to have been given the honour, adding it was ‘a mark of recognition… and an incentive to carry on the good work.’
Dr Stoyan Tsonchev
Dr Stoyan Tsonchev returned to Bulgaria to continue work but has tried to return to the UK’s medical register after inappropriately touching a nurse, claiming beautiful women are ‘irresistible’
Tsonchev also put patients at risk with wrong treatment plans and discharged a woman with a cannula still in her arm
Shameless Dr Stoyan Tsonchev was struck off the medical register before returning to Bulgaria to work because the country is ‘less strict’.
Tsonchev, who holds a degree in surgery, repeatedly failed to provide appropriate treatment for patients and once discharged a patient with a canula still in their arm.
He also inappropriately touched a nurse and asked to kiss her in the workplace, before telling a hearing that it is ‘irresistible to touch’ beautiful women, saying at a 2024 review of the decision: ‘The nurse was so pretty and It was irresistible to touch her.
‘She could have responded to my feelings. It couldn’t have been a huge and unbearable effort for her. I later understood I had to get pre-op investigations. Surely if it is a big issue I will try not to disturb the nurses in that manner, I promise!’
While suspended in 2013, he was also caught working at Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in direct breach of the suspension.
Tsonchev was struck off in 2016 and has launched repeated attempts to have himself returned to the medical register.
He told the latest hearing earlier this year he has worked in Bulgaria since his dismissal, where things are ‘more relaxed’ than in ‘strict’ Britain.
The hearing determined he had shown no insight into his actions, provided no evidence he had learned from his previous misconduct and was not fit to return to the register. He continues to work at a hospital in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Dr Juan Ruiz Alconero
Dr Juan Alconero had no licence to practise medicine when he performed hair transplants in Glasgow
Hair transplant surgeon Juan Ruiz Alconero didn’t even have a licence to practise when he performed operations at KSL Hair Ltd (KSL) in Glasgow, whose previous customers include former Celtic stars Leigh Griffiths and Anthony Stokes.
He was struck off the medical register in 2022 after he was accused of butchering surgeries so badly that one patient was left with hair growing back at right angles.
A tribunal found the doctor let his assistants perform significant amounts of surgery unsupervised, and that he carried out procedures without letting patients reconsider if they wanted to go ahead and failed to check up on them afterwards.
He has already moved back to Spain, where he qualified in 1998, and has set up his own private clinic where he charges up to €3,995 for surgery packages.
Alconero’s website makes no mention of his years operating in the UK, instead claiming he holds a diploma in capillary surgery from the St. Louis School Of Medicine in Missouri and stating he is a ‘leader in surgical medical treatment of capillary problems’.
Dr Arnaldo Paganelli
Dr Arnaldo Paganelli performed botched operations without insurance in Birmingham and now works in his native Italy
Italian cosmetic surgeon Dr Arnaldo Paganelli made regular trips to the UK to carry out work for The Hospital Group in Birmingham until 2016.
Paganelli repeatedly carried out botched operations without insurance, meaning his patients have been unable to receive any of the payouts they are owed.
He left one patient unable to close their eyes and was told to pay another patient whose nose surgery went wrong more than £22,000.
A tribunal heard The Hospital Group paid some patients who complained almost £500,000 and that Paganelli at times was working under insurance with no coverage in the UK.
He was declared bankrupt in 2013, but continues to work as a cosmetic surgeon in three clinics in Italy after being struck off in the UK in 2020.
Dr Zulfiquar Rahimtoola
Dr Zulfiquar Rahimtoola was suspended from the medical register for nine months after making a surgical error and then lying to cover it up.
The hand surgeon was employed by the Royal Berkshire Hospital Foundation Trust in Reading, the Spire Dunedin Hospital in Reading and the Ramsay Berkshire Independent Hospital between 2006 and 2020.
But in 2019 he cut into the wrong side of his patient’s wrist and then lied about it, claiming she had told him she had pain in her ‘whole wrist’, which was not true.
In 2022 he was allowed to continue practising after a GMC review found there was no significant risk of repetition.
After his suspension, Rahimtoola moved back to the Netherlands, where he studied, and continues to operate as a hand surgeon – while making no reference to his employment in the UK.
