Dr Shala Imani v General Dental Council

An appeal under Dentists Act 1984 is a rehearing, but appropriate weight is given to a specialist disciplinary tribunal’s factual and evaluative conclusions. Intervention is justified only where the decision was wrong or unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity.

A professional tribunal may admit business-record hearsay where the evidence is reliable or capable of meaningful testing and admission is fair. The Ivey dishonesty test requires the tribunal first to determine the individual’s actual knowledge or belief as to the facts, then to apply the objective standards of ordinary decent people.

Dr Shala Imani appealed under section 29(3) of the Dentists Act 1984 against a Professional Conduct Committee decision suspending her dental registration for 12 months. The Committee found that she caused or permitted inaccurate NHS dental claims, including claims for treatment not provided or prematurely dated, and had acted dishonestly in specified cases.

The appeal challenged the admission of hearsay claims data, ten findings of dishonesty and, consequentially, the sanction. The central issues were whether the Committee had fairly admitted and assessed the business-record evidence, correctly applied the subjective and objective stages of the Ivey test, and reached findings that were wrong, unjust or procedurally irregular.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Committee’s decision was neither wrong nor unjust and involved no serious procedural or other irregularity. The sanction challenge therefore did not arise.
2. Under rule 57 of the General Dental Council (Fitness to Practice) Rules 2006, the Committee had discretion to receive hearsay evidence where doing so was helpful and in the interests of justice. Fairness was the central consideration. It was entitled to consider reliability, the importance of the evidence, the destruction of the original FP17 forms, the opportunity to challenge the material through patient records and expert evidence, and the reasons for the forms’ unavailability.
3. The claims data was a business record within section 9 of the Civil Evidence Act 1995. The Committee was entitled to accept evidence that it was reliable, including evidence of a 10 per cent audit with 99.9 per cent accuracy. Its reference to the evidence not being demonstrably unreliable was loose language read in context, not a reversal of the burden or application of the wrong test.
4. The Committee correctly applied Ivey. It had to determine Dr Imani’s actual belief about her entitlement to claim UDAs before applying the objective standards of ordinary decent people. It was entitled to distinguish careless or confused claims, where dishonesty was not proved, from premature end-of-year claims where her asserted misunderstanding was rejected as implausible.
5. The Committee was entitled to find dishonesty in the premature claims and the private charging allegation. It assessed the evidence overall, identified the relevant factual differences, rejected the explanations advanced and did not reverse the burden of proof. Its mistaken reference to three earlier private treatment occasions was immaterial.

This was an appeal to the High Court under section 29(3) of the Dentists Act 1984 from the Professional Conduct Committee of the General Dental Council. The Committee had suspended Dr Imani’s registration for 12 months. The High Court dismissed the appeal.