Leeds doctor, Nihal Weerasena, guilty of misconduct

A surgeon has been found guilty of misconduct after a number of errors at a hospital's child heart unit.

Dr Nihal Weerasena was accused of various failures in the care of six children and one adult while employed by Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust between 2008 and 2012.

The surgeon had claimed he was made "a scapegoat" for shortcomings at the unit.

The tribunal will now decide whether his fitness to practise is impaired.

The trust referred the doctor to the General Medical Council (GMC) in 2014 after a review of paediatric care services, which included looking at clinical outcomes.

A report later concluded the unit did not have excessive mortality rates.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service found the surgeon had shown "substandard practice" in his treatment of a seven-year-old patient in 2012 in a "complex" surgery.

However, he was cleared of missing a key event during the operation in his typed report which had appeared in his handwritten note.

He also failed to keep an accurate record of surgery on a six-year-old patient in November 2010, the panel found.

Failings also occurred in an operation on an eight-year-old patient in September 2010 to repair narrowing of the arteries into the heart.

Dr Weerasena was cleared of failing to seek senior surgical help during another procedure and not explaining in his typed operation report why the patient had died.

His treatment of two other children was also found to be substandard. An allegation involving his care of a sixth child was not proved.

Another charge that he failed to obtain informed consent from a male patient to repair an aortic valve, when the patient was "100% certain" he was supposed to have a replacement, was proved.

The surgeon did not attend the hearing in Manchester but explained his absence in writing and alleged he had been the victim of a "cover-up".