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Evidence of GMC Unfair Practices

For many years there have been well founded rumours that the GMC acted unfairly and the outcomes of disciplinary hearings were a foregone conclusion in a number of cases. The facts now speak for themselves. Never before last year has anyone been able to question a GMC staff member or a panellist in a court of law about the covert nature of the GMC's way of operating. In the cases of Colman and Hickey Leading counsel was able to cross examine Robert Gray, Alan Howes, both former GMC deputy and assistant registrars and Dr Korlipara, a panellist.

It is vital however to realise that not all doctors who face disciplinary charges are without blame and this website supports the fact that a number of doctors are unfit to be registered and licensed. That does not mean that the GMC can use underhanded and unlawful tactics to push unpopular and bad doctors from the profession.

In common parlance, the GMC has, and may still "fit-up" some doctors having decided from the outset to eradicate them from the medical profession. A number of bad doctors will remain in the profession. Strings will be pulled from within and without the GMC to influence the outcome of hearings. For that reason the GMC must be closed down.

THE PRIME EVIDENCE

The Draft Determination with a Pre-determined Sentence of Erasure

1. The GMC admits that it was common practise for its staff, who also acted as committee secretaries, to compose Draft Determinations with findings over conduct and Pre-determined sentences of Erasure, some weeks before the hearings.  
2.  The Committee Secretary would then give the Draft Determination to the panel chairman who read
   it out as a final determination at the end of the hearing.
3. Crucially it is the pre-determined sentence that is unlawful, because in each case the only sentence was that of erasure. Dr Korlipara's evidence in May 2010 was that it was absolutely his own responsibility to determine the sentence after hearing all the evidence. Overseas doctors especially might like to ask Dr Korlipara, who has been their champion for several decades, claiming that all doctors should be treated fairly whether that has been the case. That has not happened.
4. The GMC states there were other Drafts but they were thrown away. We say that is unlikely because the most likely thing would have been to produce a Draft with a blank space for the ultimate sentence to be filled in at the end. The only drafts that have been recovered are those with the sentence of erasure typed on at the same time as the Draft was typed out
5. There was an abuse of the process and PCC panels in these hearings were biased.
6. The GMC has now admitted in court papers that they no longer use Draft Determinations. Whether they do or not, would be for others to investigate. It would need the dismantling of computers and a search of hard drives to prove it still occured.
   

CONCLUSION

The use of Draft Determinations and pre-determined sentences  is a breach of natural justice and also of 
Article 6 of the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights.

It is to be noted that under the last Labour government the GMC was to be stripped of it's powers to run the hearings and a new adjudications body had been put in place. A Chief Executive was appointed. Within a matter of weeks when the Coalition came into power in May 2010 the new adjudications body was scrapped, supposedly on financial grounds, and the GMC were claiming they could continuewith the hearings at a much cheaper cost. Following on from this was the new provision slipped in almost through the backdoor, which was that doctors facing charges could carve a deal with the GMC about their sentence and this could be done behind closed doors so that nothing would become public. This is dangerous and wrong as doctors will be persuaded by defence bodies to accept pleas and records in return for anonimity. Patients will never know what has happened.

The GMC should not act as the prosecuting authority and also sit in judgement. The GMC miscarriages of justice which have been unearthed, and now admitted to by their lawyers, go way beyond what is  
lawful, ethical and decent in UK medical regulation. The GMC and its Trustee body should agree to 
remedy these wrongs and injustices.  Unfortunately the GMC Trustees are not like other normal trustees and the GMC has the novel idea that its Trustees are accountable to it's executive.