THE patient group at the heart of the Richard Neale scandal has revealed it is backing a group of doctors at the same hospital who are in dispute with management.

Sheila Wright-Hogeland, a founder of the Action and Support Group for Medical Victims of Richard Neale, said the group set up to remove a bad doctor was being asked to help prevent good doctors leaving the Friarage Hospital, in Northallerton, North Yorkshire.

Mrs Wright-Hogeland, from Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, said senior doctors from the Friarage approached the group earlier this year because they were unhappy that a long-running internal dispute had not been resolved.

At the same time, a new acting chief executive, Bruce Skilbeck, was appointed.

The problem is over a dispute between a number of senior doctors.

Three doctors, who have since left the Friarage, reported one of their colleagues to the General Medical Council in April 1998.

Recently, lawyers from the GMC travelled to North Yorkshire to interview a number of doctors about the continuing difficulties.

Two serving doctors, who are believed to be considering leaving the trust, have also called on managers to sort out the problem.

Mrs Wright-Hogeland said several doctors had approached her because of her involvement in this summer's high-profile GMC hearing into Richard Neale, which led to the surgeon being struck off for incompetence.

She said: "It is quite ironic we have campaigned in the past to remove a poor doctor, but good doctors are leaving because of a failure of management."

A spokesman for the Friarage denied that there had been management inactivity over the row.

"It may have not produced a result which some people were perhaps looking for, but there have been a number of investigations and action has been taken within the trust," the spokesman said.

He said the dispute was "an internal squabble of quite considerable ferocity" but had not affected patient care