A doctor who was sacked by Croydon's NHS Trust for whistleblowing over concerns about patient safety said the ordeal had a "devastating" impact on his life, according to court documents.

Dr Kevin Beatt is seeking compensation for his dismissal as a consultant cardiologist at Croydon University Hospital in 2011 after he criticised management following the death of one of his patients.

According to a High Court ruling in 2017, Dr Beatt was unhappy with a decision by the hospital to suspend the head nurse in his unit while he was in the middle of operating on the patient, something he argued was a contributing factor in the death.

Dr Beatt claimed Croydon Health Sevices NHS Trust has spent "hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money" arguing in the courts that they were right to sack him for whistleblowing, according to his witness statement submitted to the remedy hearing at the Employment Tribunal Service in Croydon.

"Instead of discarding me for blowing the whistle on the trust's poor practice, the poor practice that ultimately led to patient deaths, the trust could have been paying me to treat patients," the statement added.

The incident that led to his dismissal involved nurse Lucy Jones being called into a disciplinary meeting at the hospital, which was attended by Dr Beatt, over allegations she had been rude and abusive towards colleagues, according to the High Court document.

During a break in the meeting Dr Beatt was called into theatre and while he was in the middle of the operation Ms Jones was suspended.

The patient Dr Beatt was operating on died after complications with the procedure and the consultant argued that the nurse might have helped prevent the death.

Dr Beatt later told senior managers at the trust the decision to suspend the nurse was "reckless" and also voiced his concerns to other doctors.

He was "suspended on the grounds that he had made false accusations of poor patient safety" as well as making "unfounded accusations" against a more junior nurse, according to the High Court ruling.

His wife Marie Leahy told the hearing on Tuesday that Dr Beatt was dedicated to his profession and "lived for work".

A 2014 employment tribunal ruled that Dr Beatt has been unfairly dismissed and the decision was upheld at the High Court in 2017 after an appeal by the hospital trust.