Published 24 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a907
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a907

Feature

Professional conduct

Three doctors and a GMC prosecution

¹ London

Following the collapse of a GMC case involving neonatal research that took 15 years to come to a hearing, Jonathan Gornall has uncovered a trail of incompetence and maladministration

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

On 8 May this year, 15 years after the conclusion of what has become one of the most exhaustively scrutinised trials in the history of paediatric research,¹ and 11 years after the General Medical Council first received complaints about it, a fitness to practise panel finally sat to hear charges against three of the doctors involved. Almost two months later, on 4 July, the case was thrown out by the panel, which accepted half-time submissions by the doctors’ lawyers that they had no case to answer.

The cloud that since 1997 had hung over the heads of David Southall, Martin Samuels, and Andrew Spencer and, by association, everyone at the two centres that had participated in the trial of continuous negative extrathoracic pressure (CNEP) as a treatment for neonatal respiratory failure, had been lifted.

After a decade of investigation the hearing had begun with a delay. The counsel for the . . . [Full text of this article]

Independent experts?

Earlier cases

Current case

GMC handling of complaints

Selection of experts

Weak case

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