A RETIRED Farnham pathologist who misdiagnosed more than 200 cancer patients has again defended his competence after a report criticised hospitals, including Frimley Park, for failing to make proper checks on his work record.

Dr James Elwood (79), of Burnt Hill Road was a freelance locum histopathologist at Frimley Park Hospital for three weeks in December 1994.

When news of Dr Elwood's misdiagnoses at four hospitals broke last year, Frimley Park examined 531 of his cases and found three were questionable.

The hospital has since found he caused no harm to any of his patients - elsewhere seven patients suffered "serious consequences" including a woman who underwent a needless double mastectomy.

But Dr Elwood maintains he has an acceptable error rate, just as he insisted last February when the national Press besieged his home when news of his misdiagnoses broke.

Although unavailable when The Herald called, Dr Elwood expressed his "deepest sorrow and sympathy" to one national newspaper last week for the mistakes at Frimley Park, the Princess Margaret Hospital, Swindon, Royal United Hospital, Bath, and the Mid-Sussex Hospital.

But he added: "While it would be foolish to suggest I made no errors, the figures in the report indicate that my error rate was well within the accepted average."

The report into Dr Elwood's employment by the independent Commission for Health Improvement (CHI) found proper checks were not made on his references, employment history, competence or fitness to practice.

Although most critical of the Princess Margaret Hospital in Swindon, Frimley Park did not escape criticism in the report.

The hospital's chief executive Andrew Morris said: "The trust accepts that the procedure for appointing Dr Elwood could have been more thorough and better documented but as the report notes, improvements in recruitment and performance monitoring procedures were already well under way before Dr Elwood's case got national attention.

"The situation today is very different. We now have person specifications and a formal appraisal system for consultants."

Mr Morris added that Frimley is now "much less" reliant on locums - the CHI report said hospitals are too reliant on them - and complies with NHS guidelines on their employment.

He also pointed out that the locums taken on by the hospital are mainly from one locum bank or one trusted agency and that "every effort" is made to check credentials and references.

"It would be unwise to claim that such a thing could never happen again but the system now has very many more checks and safeguards built into it, so the chances of errors by one individual going undetected are very much less likely."