THE image of the National Health Service suffered badly during the Richard Neale affair.

It was mismanaged by local officials who failed to react quickly enough to the concerns being expressed by patients, and lessons should have been learned throughout the health service.

It is therefore hard to believe that five years on from Neale being struck off the medical register for incompetence, the General Medical Council should warn that not enough has been done to protect the NHS from rogue doctors.

GMC president Sir Graeme Catto has told The Northern Echo that systems designed to root out doctors such as Neale are still not in place at a local level.

He goes on to suggest that getting rid of problem doctors sometimes conflicts with hitting waiting list targets because they cannot be replaced. It is an astonishing allegation: that for some health trusts, numbers are more important than patient safety.

The Neale case was just one of a number of high profile scandals to undermine confidence in the NHS in recent years. How long are health trust managers going to be allowed to get away with dragging their feet in such an important area of public safety?

* This comment should have appeared yesterday but was omitted due to technical reasons. We apologise for any confusion.