A senior radiographer at a troubled breast screeni

A senior radiographer at a troubled breast screening unit told the GMC today (Mon) the director did not appear to be bothered by the mounting problems.

Sheila Johnson said the service at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital was struggling to cope with its waiting list and the number of new patients created by the post-war baby-boom.

She eventually lost her temper with the lead clinician Dr John Brennan, 51, in a letter.

Mrs Johnson said: ‘Sometimes I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall.

‘I felt that I was doing a lot of the pushing without getting a lot of backing, just by the responses I got from John Brennan.

‘I would have been happier if I had had more signs from John Brennan that he was really behind me.

‘It seemed as if he didn’t want to know.

If we had been able to make a few more efforts with the waiting list we might never have got into the situation we were in.

‘

She admitted she was ‘under stress’ particularly between 1995 and 1997 with staffing levels down due to colleagues being on maternity leave.

But she often saw Brennan reading a newspaper in the middle of a session.

Mrs Johnson was asked if he appeared to be under the same stress.

She replied: ‘No, not in the same way as I was.

‘

Earlier Mrs Johnson told the GMC how she felt about radiologists including Brennan and Dr Graham Urquhart, 55, failing to explain their findings to the patients properly.

She added: ‘Women were usually told there was nothing to worry about and not always what specifically was wrong with them.

‘But it was obvious to some of them that the doctors had been looking at particular areas on the screens.

‘

Brennan and fellow radiologist Urquhart are accused of failures in noticing symptoms and signs of malignancy at the East Devon Breast Screening Service between 1991 and 1997.

They have admitted failing a total of 58 women who had tests at their hospital.

But Brennan, of (40a) Highweek Village, Newton Abbot, Devon, and Urquhart, of the Farmhouse, (4) Higher Alston Farm, Alston Lane, Churston Ferrers, Brixham, Devon, both deny serious professional misconduct between January 1991 and June 1997.

The hearing continues.

ends