Forty-five members of staff have been suspended for staff misconduct at hospitals and health care centres covered by St George’s University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust since 2016.

The Trust runs hospitals including Queen Mary’s Hospital on Roehampton Lane and St George’s Hospital in Tooting.

The concerning statistics were revealed in a Freedom of Information Request sent by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

All of the suspensions were for staff misconduct. The Trust said it does not record the departments the individuals worked in, or for how long staff were suspended. 

However, it did say that 17 members of staff were permanently dismissed from their roles after suspension, while only 28 of them returned to work.

So far this year (2019) there have been 13 suspensions from the Trust.

The news comes as the Trust awaits its new CQC rating.

It is currently rated as ‘Requires Improvement’ but it hopes this will be upgraded after initial feedback from the latest CQC inspection was said to be “positive”.

Commenting on the suspension statistics, a St George’s spokesperson said:

“There are a number of reasons why a member of staff may be suspended, but in every case a suspension allows us to undertake a full impartial investigation of the facts.

 “We have seen a small number of staff suspended since 2016, and even fewer staff dismissed following investigation.

 “However, it is important to stress that this represents a very small proportion of our 9,000 staff, who work hard to provide a high quality service for our patients, and the communities we serve.”