Dr Evgeniy Igorovich Kuzmin v General Medical Council

A statutory appeal under section 40 of the Medical Act 1983 is appellate rather than supervisory and proceeds by way of rehearing. The court may substitute its own decision, but should give appropriate deference to the tribunal, particularly on primary factual findings. Intervention is ordinarily justified only for an obvious error, clear perversity, or a conclusion wholly unsupported by the evidence.

Conditions requiring a practitioner to notify specified persons and organisations are construed purposively and broadly where their purpose is public protection. An out-of-hours training service may fall within such a notification condition where the practitioner remains functionally registered or has a continuing contractual relationship with it, even if access to its booking system has been deactivated.

The appellant, a general practitioner, appealed under section 40 of the Medical Act 1983 against a Medical Practitioners Tribunal determination finding facts proved, dishonesty, misconduct and impaired fitness to practise. The tribunal imposed a six-month suspension.

The appeal challenged the finding that the appellant remained registered with, or had a contractual relationship with, an out-of-hours service and was therefore required by condition 8 of an interim order to disclose his restrictions before seeking to resume training. It also challenged the refusal to admit fresh evidence on appeal. The central issues were the proper approach to a section 40 appeal, the scope of the notification condition, and the application of the fresh-evidence test.

1. Appeal dismissed. The section 40 jurisdiction is appellate, not supervisory, and the appeal proceeds by way of rehearing. The court may substitute its own decision, but must give appropriate deference to the tribunal, especially on primary findings of fact. A less deferential approach may apply to sanction. Intervention was not justified absent an obvious error, clear perversity, or a conclusion wholly unsupported by the evidence (paras [36]-[41], [58]).
2. Condition 8 was intended to operate expansively. Its purpose was to ensure that people and organisations with whom the practitioner was likely to have contact in fulfilling professional responsibilities or training knew that his registration was subject to restrictions. The tribunal was entitled to adopt a broad and purposive construction rather than a restrictive or formalistic one (paras [62]-[65]).
3. The tribunal was entitled to find that the appellant remained registered with the out-of-hours service. Registration was a functional status arising from the continuing link, completed documentation, induction, and retained details permitting resumption of work without a fresh registration process. Deactivation prevented booking shifts but did not amount to deregistration (paras [64]-[68]).
4. The contractual relationship provided an alternative basis for applying the notification condition. The honorary contract continued to constitute a contractual arrangement even though the appellant was temporarily ineligible to undertake the relevant training, since he could resume it on attaining the appropriate status (para [69]).
5. The proposed evidence of Dr Wright was inadmissible on appeal. It could have been obtained for the fact-finding hearing once the honorary contract was produced, and was unlikely to have influenced the result because the tribunal’s reasoning did not depend on treating the arrangement as equivalent to formal GMC registration. The Ladd v Marshall principles were therefore not satisfied (paras [70]-[73]).

Medical Practitioners Tribunal: Found the relevant facts proved, determined that the appellant had acted dishonestly, found misconduct and impaired fitness to practise, and imposed a six-month suspension.

High Court (Administrative Court): Dismissed the statutory appeal and excluded the proposed fresh evidence. The court invited agreement on consequential orders, including costs.