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A world renowned transplant surgeon has been sacked after allegedly delaying an operation on a NHS patient to treat a private patient first.

Professor Nadey Hakim was dismissed for gross misconduct by Imperial College NHS trust after being accused of holding up the kidney and pancreas transplant on the NHS patient.

He learned this week he had lost his position as surgical director of the West London Renal and Transplant Centre at Hammersmith hospital, the largest facility of its kind in Europe.

It is believed he was suspended by Imperial last year while an investigation was carried out. Prof Hakim denies any wrongdoing.

The “really serious” incident, in which he is said to have prioritised the private patient’s transplant, happened in 2013.

A spokeswoman for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust told the Standard: “We take the safety of our patients extremely seriously and have conducted a thorough investigation.

“The private patient involved in this case was not a patient at one of our hospitals. We can confirm that this member of staff is no longer working at the trust.”

Prof Hakim, 56, who has a private practice in Harley Street, refused to comment for legal reasons. However, a legal source involved in the case said: “There was no harm whatsoever to the patient and it is understood they now have excellent kidney and pancreas function 16 months later. These allegations are unfounded and are being appealed.”

Prof Hakim is one of the UK’s foremost transplant surgeons who, like many doctors, combines his NHS work with private work offered via healthcare companies such as Bupa and HCA at private hospitals in London including the Cromwell and London Bridge.

The consultant also specialises in bariatric surgery for obese patients and in general surgery.

The Lebanon-born doctor was part of a French team that performed the world’s first hand transplant in 1998, but three years later he amputated the replacement hand at the request of the patient.

He pioneered an organ removal technique known as finger-assisted nephrectomy, which combines “keyhole” surgery with manual intervention to reduce the operating time from two to three hours to 45 minutes, reducing the risk to the donor. About a third of donated kidneys are from living donors.

There are fewer than 200 combined kidney and pancreas transplants carried out each year in the UK, normally for type-1 diabetics with end-state renal failure.

In an Imperial video recorded in 2012, Prof Hakim says he treats patients “the way I would treat a member of my own family”. He added: “When they come in they are unwell, they are weak, they can’t move and it’s the best feeling you can have to see within 48 hours of having had transplant to be a completely different person.

“The process of reviving an organ [is] a truly incredible miracle which happens every time we do a transplant.”

In a separate Imperial video, he added: “Our job is to make sure the transplant takes place without any complications - to make sure you as a donor and as a recipient get the best service ever at this hospital.”

Last month the unit at Hammersmith, which performs about 140 kidney transplants a year, carried out the UK’s first kidney and liver transplant from a deceased newborn baby.

A Bupa spokeswoman was unable to comment. A HCA spokesman said it had no records of transplant work carried out by Prof Hakim on its private patients.