WAF, R (on the application of) v General Medical Council & Ors

A disciplinary screening body must address each distinct allegation raised by a complaint. It cannot deal with a specific allegation compendiously if that approach leaves the allegation without separate consideration or adequate reasons. Where an allegation is unclear or insufficiently particularised, the body should consider seeking further information before deciding whether referral is warranted. On judicial review, the court should not decide the merits of the professional misconduct allegation or usurp the statutory body’s function. The appropriate remedy is to quash the decision and remit the specific allegations for reconsideration.

The claimant sought judicial review of the Preliminary Proceedings Committee’s decision not to refer complaints against two doctors to the General Medical Council’s Professional Conduct Committee. Permission was granted on the issue whether the committee had failed to address allegations that the doctors had changed their diagnostic view but failed to inform the local authority or court, and on a separate disclosure issue.

The GMC did not oppose the claim. The interested parties argued that the allegations were contradictory, unsupported by evidence, and adequately addressed in the committee’s general reasoning. The court therefore considered whether the committee had properly considered the specific allegations and what remedy should follow.

1. Decision quashed and matter remitted. The committee failed to give proper consideration to charges 9(d) and 12(d), which alleged that each doctor had admitted that the child suffered from ME/CFS but had failed to inform the local authority or court of the alleged change of view. The matter was remitted specifically for consideration of those charges, in light of the evidence then available, including the doctors’ letter of 5 December 2003.
2. The allegations were not necessarily contradictory. It was open to the complainant to allege that the doctors initially maintained one diagnosis at the meeting on 28 November 2003 and later conceded that another diagnosis was correct. The wording of the charges had been formulated by the screener, not by the claimant, and was capable of conveying the underlying complaint.
3. If the committee considered the allegation uncertain or insufficiently particularised, it could have sought further information from the claimant and obtained particulars for fair response by the doctors. It could not avoid the allegation by failing to engage with it.
4. The allegation of an alleged change of diagnosis and subsequent failure to disclose it was a distinct allegation of deceit. It required separate consideration and reasons. A general conclusion that the doctors’ actions had been reasonable, or that there was no evidence of collusion, did not address it.
5. Whether the evidence established serious professional misconduct, whether the charges should be referred, and whether the doctors should be treated differently were matters for the committee and, ultimately, the Professional Conduct Committee. The court expressed no view on the merits and did not remit the matter at large.

Costs were ordered against the GMC up to 14 July 2005, subject to detailed assessment and written representations, and against the interested parties thereafter.

Not stated in the judgment. The proceedings were a first-instance judicial review in the Administrative Court.