After Eljamel scandal, now NHS staff risk prison for shredding 'Do Not Destroy' files

Résumé détaillé

NHS staff across Scotland were warned they could face criminal charges for shredding documents - after potentially crucial evidence about rogue medic was destroyed.

Published: 17:46 GMT, 14 November 2026 | Updated: 17:46 GMT, 14 November 2026

NHS staff across Scotland have been warned they could face criminal charges for shredding documents – after potentially crucial evidence about a rogue medic was destroyed.

Disgraced neurosurgeon Sam Eljamel is accused of harming more than 200 patients by carrying out botched, reckless or unnecessary brain and spinal procedures.

An ongoing public inquiry has heard that dozens of logbooks detailing operations he performed while working in Dundee were lost – despite an explicit order that they should be preserved.

NHS Tayside has apologised for shredding the documents, admitting that the failing had ‘compounded and exacerbated distress for patients’.

But now, in the wake of the scandal, NHS top brass have written to every health board in the country updating the rules on Do Not Destroy (DND) notices – which are intended to keep important documents safe.

Signed by NHS Scotland chief operating officer Stephen Gallagher, the letter highlights that a DND notice is a formal legal instrument – and that ‘failure to provide evidence required by an inquiry may constitute a criminal offence’.

Breaking the law could result in a fine or up to six months in prison.

New rules on DND notices, the letter states, have been drawn up ‘in response to lessons arising from the destruction of theatre logbooks and the requirements associated with the Eljamel Inquiry’.

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