Swedish Watchdog Let Dangerous Doctors Keep Working for Years

SWEDEN - Doctors that Sweden's own health watchdog had judged grossly incompetent were allowed to keep treating patients for up to five years and nine months while their cases sat untouched.

Not once did the watchdog ask for any of them to be suspended in the meantime.

That is the verdict of Sweden's Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman, Erik Nymansson, who on November 9 issued severe criticism of the Health and Social Care Inspectorate, the agency that supervises doctors and other healthcare staff.

When the inspectorate concludes that a doctor is unfit to practise, it reports the case to a separate disciplinary board, which decides whether to revoke the licence.

In 2025, up to November 18, the inspectorate filed 55 such reports. The Ombudsman reviewed all of them and examined eleven in detail. Those cases had taken between one year and nine months and five years and nine months to handle.

In ten of the eleven, the inspectorate itself had found the doctors grossly incompetent. In one, the doctor had committed a serious crime.

In none of the cases did the inspectorate ask for a temporary licence suspension while it investigated. The doctors could simply carry on working - which, the Ombudsman said, increased the risk that more patients would receive substandard care or be harmed.

Thirteen new complaints while the case stalled

The longest case began in January 2020, after it emerged that a doctor had for years prescribed large quantities of narcotic drugs. The inspectorate had already criticised the same doctor three times for the same thing.

Only on October 27, 2025 - five years and nine months later - was the doctor reported to the disciplinary board.

During that time, thirteen new complaints came in from pharmacies, social services, healthcare providers and members of the public. Two involved patients who had suffered amphetamine-induced psychosis.

In another case, the investigation was parked with an administrator while the agency waited for a new case officer. It sat still for a year and a half. The inspectorate later concluded that the doctor's prescribing had enabled overuse in amounts and combinations that put patients' lives at risk.

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Cancer patients and a 14-year-old boy

One doctor, previously criticised for practising alternative medicine, gave a cancer patient a treatment that research suggests can speed up tumour growth.

Another prescribed narcotic drugs without proper grounds to a 14-year-old boy and raised doses for patients struggling with addiction.

A third diagnosed diabetes in a patient with normal blood sugar. A healthcare provider that hired him in May 2023 said nothing in his conduct showed he was competent to work as a doctor at any level.

The Ombudsman also describes a doctor linked to three incidents of serious patient harm, including a missed internal wound during surgery, and another whose work led to delayed cancer diagnoses or repeat operations in seven cases.

"Completely unacceptable"

Every one of the ten criticised cases had long periods where nothing happened. In eight, the responsible case officer was replaced several times. The Ombudsman called the handling very inefficient.

It is obvious, he wrote, that the inspectorate cannot meet the requirement for fast and effective case handling, and the processing times are completely unacceptable. A copy of the decision has been sent to the government.

The inspectorate says it has prioritised its oldest cases and is working to cut processing times.

The Ombudsman launched the review after a Swedish Radio investigation into dangerous doctors aired in November 2025. The doctors are not named, and the decision does not say whether any of the eleven have lost their licences.