The General Medical Council was guilty of “serious and disturbing failures” when it refused to investigate a father's complaint against a GP over the death of his son, a High Court judge said last week. Arpad Toth of Walingford, Oxfordshire, (father of 5 year old Wilfrid Toth, who died in 1993) and David Jarman, the GP against whom the complaint was made, were victims of these failures, said Mr Justice Lightman.
Mr Toth accused Dr Jarman of serious professional misconduct in failing to administer intravenous glucose to his son, who had glycogen storage disease, when he became hypoglycaemic. The judge quashed decisions by the screener, who acts as the initial filter for complaints, not to send Mr Toth's complaint against Dr Jarman to the Preliminary Proceedings Committee, the next stage towards to a full hearing by the professional conduct committee.
The GMC admitted that the screener's decision was legally flawed. It agreed to quash the decision and start the process again, but the case went to court when Dr Jarman intervened to argue that reviving the complaint would be unfair to him. The judgment lays down important guidance on the roles of the sifting mechanism for complaints, which are likely to make it harder for the GMC to reject complaints at the preliminary stages. The screener had decided that because there was a conflict of evidence between the father and the GP and because the standard of proof was beyond reasonable doubt, the case had no prospect of success.
The judge said that it was not part of the screener's role to take such a decision; the screener was only a preliminary filter.
The GMC proposes from 1 July, in the light of the forthcoming Human Rights Act, to let complainants see documents provided to the screener by the doctor. Confidential medical information whose release could cause substantial harm to the doctor or a third party will be released in an edited form or only if the complainant gives an undertaking to keep it confidential. The judge held that the GMC could release information on the doctor's health but could require complainants to give an undertaking of confidentiality.