Permission without Direction: Gross Negligence Manslaughter and Erasure following Bawa-Garba

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-203
Author(s):  
Nathan Hodson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
General Medical Council ◽  
Medical Council ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
High Court ◽  
Harm To Others ◽  
Court Of Appeal

Abstract This article explores when a doctor convicted of gross negligence manslaughter would be erased from the medical register. The General Medical Council (GMC) sanctions guidance avoids directing the Medical Practitioners Tribunal (MPT) about erasure following gross negligence manslaughter and rulings at the High Court and Court of Appeal argue against any presumption of erasure after a doctor is convicted of gross negligence manslaughter. The Court of Appeal in Bawa-Garba ruled that the sanctions guidance should not be taken to guide the MPT towards erasure after “serious harm to others either deliberately or through incompetence”, but merely permits erasure in those circumstances. This approach is consistent with the rest of the sanctions guidance which allows the MPT wide discretion and defends that MPT’s case-by- case approach. This promotes decision-making behind closed doors, diminishes the Sanctions Guidance, and makes it difficult to predict when a doctor will be erased after gross negligence manslaughter.

Updated GMC guidance on decision-making and consent: implications for urologists

2020 ◽  
pp. 205141582094553
Author(s):  
Siobhan Duffy ◽  
Catriona Barlow ◽  
Mark Underwood ◽  
Elizabeth Day
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
General Medical Council ◽  
Medical Council ◽  
Level Of Evidence ◽  
Consent Forms ◽  
One Stop

We summarise the updated General Medical Council guidance on consent and decision-making. We explore the emphasis on enabling supported decision-making and the implications this has in day to day urological practice. In particular, we address some of the issues encountered in one-stop clinics, on pooled elective lists and with pre-written consent forms. The new guidance will emphasise the importance of sharing information relevant to your patient in light of the Montgomery ruling. Every decision is unique. We must appreciate the importance of the process of decision-making and understand our role as the clinician. Here we suggest some practical considerations to address the updated General Medical Council guidance. Level of evidence: Not applicable.

The good, the bad and the dishonest doctor: the General Medical Council and the ‘redemption model’ of fitness to practise

Legal Studies ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Case
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Patient Population ◽  
General Medical Council ◽  
Medical Council ◽  
Professional Integrity ◽  
Professional Discipline ◽  
Elusive Concept

The ‘elusive’ concept of ‘impairment’ was introduced into the General Medical Council's Fitness to Practise Procedures in 2002. Its function was ostensibly to bring all forms of fitness to practise allegations against doctors under a unifying concept and thereby reduce procedural complexity. This paper strives to illuminate the application of ‘impairment’ of fitness to practise with reference to a year of fitness to practise decision making by the General Medical Council (GMC). It concludes that impairment has brought with it a redemptive style of resolving matters of professional discipline which brings significant benefits to doctors, the patient population and society as a whole, but which can also encourage a contrived exchange of remorse, insight and remediation with further implications for professional integrity and truth.

scholarly journals Alcohol dependence and driving: knowledge of DVLA regulations

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-38
Author(s):  
Andrew Collier ◽  
Maggie Watts ◽  
Sujoy Ghosh ◽  
Peter Rice ◽  
Neil Dewhurst
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Abuse ◽  
Alcohol Dependence ◽  
Medical Condition ◽  
General Medical Council ◽  
Alcohol Problems ◽  
Clinical Implications ◽  
Medical Council ◽  
Medical Practitioners

Aims and MethodsThe UK's Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) requires individuals to report if they have a medical condition such as alcohol dependence. General Medical Council guidance indicates that medical practitioners should ensure patients are aware of their impairment and requirement to notify the DVLA.ResultsIn a survey of 246 people with known alcohol dependence, none were aware of advice on driving given by medical practitioners and none had self-reported. In addition, 362 doctors, either attending a college symposium or visiting a college website, were asked about their knowledge of DVLA regulations regarding alcohol dependence: 73% of those attending the symposium and 63% of those visiting the website answered incorrectly. In Scotland, over 20000 people have alcohol dependence (over 1 million people with alcohol abuse), yet only 2548 people with alcohol problems self-reported to the DVLA in 2011.Clinical implicationsIf the DVLA regulations were implemented, it could make an enormous difference to the behaviours of the driving public.

Suggestions for rendering Medico-Mental Science available to the better Administration of Justice and the more effectual Prevention of Lunacy and Crime

1868 ◽  
Vol 14 (67) ◽  
pp. 334-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Laycock
Keyword(s):  
Medical Science ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
General Medical Council ◽  
Formal Proof ◽  
Medical Council ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
Administration Of Justice ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government

That medico-mental science is often at variance with the doctrines and decisions of the courts of law is a fact too well known and too generally admitted to need formal proof. It is almost as generally assumed that the scandalous failures of justice, which too often result, must be attributed to the defective education and knowledge of the profession. It is alleged that, as a body, we are for the most part ignorant and theoretical in matters relating to insanity, and if not ignorant, then presuming, and often using the little knowledge we possess, rather with the intent to rescue thieves and murderers from the legal consequences of their crimes than to help the administration of justice. It is certainly a fact which many of us lament that the corporate bodies of the profession generally, including the general medical council, ignore the subject as a distinct department of medical education; and consequently medical practitioners, not being duly trained, do sometimes appear to great disadvantage in courts of law. Medical shortcomings are not, however, the subject of my paper, but certain fundamental defects in the principles and procedures of the law which render medico-mental science sometimes even worse than useless, and always less useful to the commonweal than it might be, if rightly adapted to the needs of modern society. Nor would it be difficult to show that some of the crime and folly which occupies our courts and fills our reformatories, prisons, workhouses, and lunatic asylums, is capable of prevention by a well-devised use of medico-mental science. As these matters are wholly beyond the powers of the profession, I shall ask leave to move at the close of the discussion that a committee be appointed, with power to take such steps as may be thought necessary to secure a thorough inquiry by the Government into the relations of medical science to the administration of the law in regard to all persons mentally disordered or defective, with a view to such improvements as may be practicable.

scholarly journals Clinical standards and the wider quality agenda

2000 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Lelliott
Keyword(s):  
Medical Practice ◽  
General Public ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
General Medical Council ◽  
Medical Council ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
Professional Self ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

There is an unprecedented level of interest among the general public, the media and politicians in the quality of treatment and care provided by the NHS. Traditional methods for upholding the quality of medical practice, through professional self-regulation, are under attack. The General Medical Council (GMC) has responded by voting to introduce a process of revalidation for medical practitioners. If this is not seen to succeed, the Government could take this responsibility away from the GMC, and the Medical Colleges and Faculties.

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