Dr Visalakshmi Suresh & Ors v General Medical Council

A public regulator is not generally liable in negligence to a person subject to its statutory investigation merely because the investigation or its notification may foreseeably cause psychiatric harm. Although notifying a doctor is a positive act, a common-law duty of care may be excluded where it would conflict with the statutory scheme, including mandatory duties to investigate, notify and protect the public.

An operational duty under Article 2 ECHR arises only in well-defined circumstances. A doctor being notified of a fitness-to-practise investigation is not, without more, a circumstance involving the necessary assumption of responsibility, meaningful state control, exceptional risk or sufficiently specific vulnerability. Generic evidence that doctors face increased psychiatric risks does not establish knowledge of a real and immediate risk to life.

The claimants, comprising the widow and children of Dr Sridharan Suresh, brought claims in negligence and under sections 6 and 7 of the Human Rights Act 1998 against the General Medical Council. They alleged that the GMC’s communication notifying Dr Suresh of a fitness-to-practise investigation, and its failure to make further enquiries or provide additional support, caused or contributed to his suicide.

The GMC applied under CPR rule 3.4 and, alternatively, CPR rule 24.3. The central issues were whether the GMC owed Dr Suresh a common-law duty of care concerning the timing, manner and content of the notification, and whether the circumstances engaged the Article 2 operational duty.

1. Negligence claim. The claim was struck out, alternatively summarily dismissed. The court assumed in the claimants’ favour that psychiatric harm or suicide might have been foreseeable.
2. The communication of 2 May 2018 was a positive act capable in principle of attracting ordinary negligence principles. The omissions-based principle therefore did not itself answer the claim.
3. However, the Medical Act 1983 and the General Medical Council (Fitness to Practise) Rules Order of Council 2004 imposed mandatory obligations to investigate allegations, notify the practitioner, obtain employment details and facilitate consideration of interim orders. A common-law duty owed to the investigated doctor would risk conflict with the GMC’s statutory objective of protecting the public and with duties requiring action as soon as reasonably practicable. It was therefore inconsistent with the statutory scheme.
4. The same conclusion applied to the alleged failures to make enquiries, liaise with the Trust, assess risk or use the GMC’s suicide tool. Those allegations were either inconsistent with the statutory framework or were omissions to confer a benefit. No assumption-of-responsibility exception applied: the GMC had not undertaken responsibility for Dr Suresh’s safety, and the pleadings identified no conduct supporting such an assumption.
5. The court applied the framework in Robinson, Poole, HXA and Tindall. It held that the settled principles provided a clear answer, so a trial was unnecessary on the duty issue. The foreseeability issue, considered separately, was fact-sensitive and not fanciful, but could not save a claim where no duty existed.
6. Article 2 claim. The claim was struck out, alternatively summarily dismissed. The notification of a regulatory investigation did not fall within the well-defined circumstances required for an operational duty. The GMC did not assume responsibility for Dr Suresh’s welfare or exercise meaningful control over him. The risk arising from regulatory notification was not exceptional, and vulnerability alone was insufficient.
7. In any event, the generic evidence that doctors undergoing investigations may face psychiatric injury or suicide did not establish that the GMC knew or ought to have known of a real and immediate risk to Dr Suresh’s life. The pleaded signs of distress and disturbed sleep did not meet that threshold.

First-instance decision. The judgment records no prior judicial decision in the same proceedings.