A surgeon employed by Kingston Hospital without an interview or CV after getting a personal recommendation from a relative botched up seven operations in three months.

Doctor Faisal Sultan Siddiqui, 57, carried out six operations that fell “seriously below expected standards” after starting work in January 2010 as a locum consultant orthopaedic surgeon.

A five-year-old girl required a second surgery after he treated her. Six other patients were also left “worse off than they had been before surgery”.

He was struck off following a three-day Medical Practitioners Tribunal (MPT) in Manchester last week, which he chose not to attend.

Chairman Sheila Hollingworth said: “Dr Siddiqui has neither recognised, nor taken responsibility for his failings or for the harm caused to patients as a result.

“He has shown no remorse for the harm he has caused, and has shown no recognition of the impact his misconduct has had on the reputation of the profession.”

Dr Siddiqui, who is of Pakistani origin, was first referred to the General Medical Council after a complaint made by a patient he treated. But investigating this led to the discovery of seven other patients.

The panel ruled the medic had been “out of his depth”. He is believed to have left the country.

Details of the tribunal were sent to an address in New Delhi. Kingston Hospital said Dr Siddiqui’s employment had been subject to a serious untoward incident investigation.

A spokeswoman said: “Dr Siddiqui's employment as a locum and the standard of care he provided at Kingston Hospital was subject to a serious untoward incident (SUI) investigation at the time.

"The trust also informed the GMC of its concerns.

"The MPTs recent decision confirms that the trust was right to have identified concerns about Dr Siddiqui's fitness to practice.

"In the light of our own investigation there were also changes made to strengthen the process for appointing locum doctors within the trust, to avoid this happening again."

Grahame Snelling from Kingston’s Healthwatch, said: “Safe recruitment is critical where people are involved and when this does not happen there are all sorts of consequences.”

Kingston’s top GP, Dr Naz Jivani who is the chair of the Kingston Clinical Commissioning Governing body, said: “I am surprised by this [the lack of checks on Dr Siddiqui before he was employed].

"I did not think this was the normal process.

“But four years ago was a different environment. If there are any serious incidents now they would be looked at by the clinical commissioning group.

"There are procedures in place to make sure that a there is a way to whistleblow."