A SCIENTIST has been suspended for a "serious and wide ranging" lack of competence while working at Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

Raoul Ebau worked at the Department of Immunology and Pathology at RBH processing blood and faecal samples from January to April 2015.

A Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) panel heard during that time his colleagues became "increasingly concerned" about the standard of his work.

Concerns related to basic tasks like booking in faecal samples as blood samples, not weighing samples and inappropriately preparing samples for antibody testing.

In one case 17 sample results had to be retested, with four shown to be incorrect.

In April 2015 Mr Ebau was subject to an internal investigation and was suspended by the hospital. 

A witness said when challenged about errors Mr Ebau was unapologetic and said "he was new and these things happen".

It was also said that he "could never be relied upon to complete tasks without making errors".

Mr Ebau qualified in Italy in 2004 and worked as a medical laboratory assistant in the UK before getting the job at RBH.

The panel suspended his registration for 12 months after concluding his lack of competence was "serious and wide ranging" and that he had not learnt from errors and had instead "sought to blame others".

Karen Allman, director of human resources at RBH, said: “We encourage all of our staff to raise any concerns they might have so we can investigate them appropriately, as was the case here.

“We would also like to reassure patients that all samples processed by our Immunology and Pathology departments are checked by at least two members of staff to ensure they are accurate.”