A couple of weeks ago I was reporting my incredulity at the fact that the GMC had apparently got something right. Twice. But now normal service has been resumed, and just when I thought that nothing they could do could make me more dissatisfied with them than I already am, along comes their judgement in the case of Dr Jerome Ikwueke, the GP involved in the Baby P case.
They found that there were ‘serious failings‘ in his handling of the case, but then, he wasn’t alone in that. However, the fitness to practise panel chairman Dr Judith Worthington, said: “You don’t pose a risk of repeating this behaviour and there’s no evidence of deep-seated attitudinal or personality problems.” She also admitted that the GP had taken the appropriate remedial measures personally, and had changed procedures at his practice to minimise the risk of any similar failing in the future. She said, and who could disagree with her, that striking him off the register would not be “proportionate or in the public interest”. So what did they do? They suspended him (i.e. struck him off) for a year.
Which will achieve exactly what? It will deprive his patients of a GP they clearly have a lot of respect for (the panel received numerous testimonials to the quality of his care for them), and he will have a year away from his profession, with no income and no opportunity to put into practice the retraining he has already undertaken. I think we all know why the GMC took this craven action, but unusually, they actually came out and admitted it for once. They suspended the GP, said Dr Worthington, “in order to maintain public confidence in the profession and to declare and uphold proper standards of conduct and behaviour”.
In other words, they did it to appease the Daily Mail readers, whose spittle-flecked twin sets and florid, broken-veined complexions bear testimony to their incoherent and all-consuming need for a culprit. Any culprit. The GMC clearly accept that nothing beneficial will be achieved by Dr Ikwueke’s suspension, but it would rather pander to the general public’s lust for vengeance than make a reasoned case for allowing him to continue practising.
I have to laugh when people say it’s time that the medical profession lost the right to self-regulation. If this is self-regulation, I’d far rather take my chances with a lay judicial body, funded from public money, in the event that I was accused of malpractice. At least then I wouldn’t, in effect, be paying the hangman myself. The GMC should stick to their job of maintaining the register, and I reckon 20 quid a year should be plenty for that.
And at the same time they are giving jobs to convicted criminals.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/child-abduction-conspirator-hired-to-advise-doctors-2029417.html
Absolutely Zorro. As is my wont after firing off a piece from the hip like this, I woke this morning wondering if it was a bit OTT. Then I read about the Mellor fiasco on DNUK and realised that I had let them off lightly.
The GP severely let down Baby P. In fact, had the GP done his job properly, Baby P would probably be alive. The GMC’s sanction is entirely justified. Shame they get so many other decisions so wrong.