Romford radiographer struck off for giving patient wrong scan and then covering it up

A “dishonest” hospital specialist who exposed a patient to “greater than intended” amounts of radiation has been struck off.

Leonard Odu performed an unnecessary scan on a patient and tried to cover up his mistake, a health panel ruled earlier this month.

Radiographer Odu, who worked at Queen’s Hospital, in Rom Valley Way, Romford, mistakenly gave a patient a head scan instead of an abdominal scan in January 2012, the Conduct and Competence Committee panel of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) heard.

He had failed to perform the appropriate identification checks.

It meant the patient was exposed to radiation to “an extent much greater than intended”, the report by the panel said.

Odu tried to cover his tracks by deleting the images from the CT scanner hard drive before asking a colleague to wipe the pictures from the archiving system.

Odu, who had worked for Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust since 2004, had already received training to deal with a previous identification mistake two years earlier, the panel heard.

Panel chairman Colin Allies said: “The matters found proved amounted to serious lapses of professional standards and misconduct. They had the potential of causing patient harm. The registrant deliberately sought to conceal his mistakes in a dishonest manner.

“The panel cannot be satisfied that there may be no repetition of mistakes of this nature because of the lack of evidence of the registrant’s understanding of the nature of his errors. This is particularly compounded by his dishonest behaviour in this case.”

Odu pleaded guilty but was not present or represented at the hearing.

He has a right to appeal.