DR CLIVE KELLY, FRCP MD
CONSULTANT PHYSICIAN AT JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL,
MIDDLESBROUGH and SENIOR LECTURER AT NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY
BACKGROUND
I am an experienced Consultant Physician based in the North of England and divide my time between clinical and academic commitments. I also volunteer in Africa where we run both humanitarian charities and medical initiatives. My family and I supported a girl who sat next to our daughter at school through her teenage years, taking her on pilgrimage and expeditions at her parents’ request. She got back in touch with us in her twenties, and asked us for a lot more help, saying we cared more for her than her parents did. In early 2017 she told me her mother was in Hospital. She shared details and, believing her mother had consented, I offered to help her mother too. Six months later, she asked if she could join my African research team. Her mother expressed concern about her daughter’s involvement, so I initially declined her application. She intensified her requests for my academic input, asking for help with her master’s interview and advice on job applications. She reapplied to join my research team via the University, was interviewed and offered a funded place, providing she told her parents.
However, she didn’t tell them and when I suggested telling them myself, she forbade me from contacting them. She later claimed that she intended I should not contact her again either, but we didn’t interpret her comments this way. She had a history of mental health issues with family conflict and serious self-harm. She said her parents had thrown her out. We were advised that withdrawing her offer might trigger adverse personal and professional outcomes. Two days later I left to plan my research in Africa and stayed in contact with each member of my research team, including her, while setting up the projects. On my return home, my wife told me that her father had demanded I contact him, which I did. My accuser informed the police claiming that my contact amounted to harassment
GMC INVOLVEMENT
My accuser neither admitted that her father had asked me to contact him, nor that she had just accepted a research place with me. Once I shared her two thousand messages, emails, texts and telephone calls, the police dropped the charge of simple harassment my accuser wanted to bring. She then contacted the GMC asking them to investigate me for harassment in March 2018, but three months later she followed me to the town in Africa where I was based with my other students. I was warned of the danger and avoided her, yet she applied for a restraining order. I successfully appealed this, and the Judge ruled she ‘had not been entirely honest with the police’. He said that no intervention would have been necessary if she had told the truth. The GMC asked me to attend an interim tribunal in 2018 and deemed no sanctions necessary.
However, my accuser persisted, sending the GMC a 300-page document with multiple false statements which they admitted was contradictory. Over the next 4 years the GMC fluctuated. At one stage they told us that they may take no further action as my accuser was uncooperative. They apologised to me in writing admitting that they had made several errors in their handling of my case. My accuser continued to contact the GMC on multiple occasions, falsely claiming that I was still in touch with her. We later learned via her father that she had subsequently received a formal diagnosis which explained but did not excuse her behaviour. In fact, she and her parents regularly approached us directly and indirectly, despite written instructions to desist.
In 2021 the GMC referred me to the MPTS. They were concerned that I had accessed her mother’s blood test without her written consent. Whilst this was true, I had done so incorrectly believing that I had verbal consent via my accuser. She told the GMC that she had only mentioned her mother’s illness to distract me from the fact that she hadn’t contacted me for three days. This was demonstrably untrue: I shared 29 messages she had bombarded me with in those 72 hours. The GMC were also concerned that I had not referenced the restraining order in a locum application. Again, this was true, but I’d sought and followed professional advice on exactly what to include in my response to an ambiguous question. My request for a meeting with personnel to discuss this had been ignored. The GMC’s main issue was undoubtedly my accuser’s harassment claim. My decision to stay in touch with her while working overseas was based on professional advice about acting in her best interests as her own wishes often fluctuated. My messages had attempted to offer reassurance whilst emphasising her responsibilities. She claimed that I had caused her alarm and distress by maintaining this contact in the weeks following her successful research application.
MPTS HEARING
The MPTS hearing was held over a 5-week period online in mid-2022. Disclosing her diagnosis, my accuser requested special measures. She insisted that I turned my camera off while she gave evidence. No-one could see my reactions when she gave false testimony on 18 occasions under oath. She denied that she had shared distressing personal issues with me, greatly reducing our opportunity to explain my concerned response to specific adverse events she’d shared. She said she’d never asked us for help and claimed that we were never friends. My accuser admitted that she had lied about the apologies and promises that she had given me. She even tried to claim that I’d stalked her, when in fact she’d asked me to take her swimming, shopping, and had bought me presents. She vehemently denied asking me for help with her job applications and refused to agree that she’d been interviewed for a place on the research team.
Neither my wife nor I were allowed to address her misrepresentations. We were refused permission to share the 650 pages of correspondence my accuser had sent me. However, the GMC solicitor sent their full unredacted bundle to the MPTS in advance of the hearing and sent a copy of the full bundle directly to my accuser, both against accepted protocol. Neither the GMC nor the surgeon on the MPTS understood her condition or its effects on her behaviour. They also failed to appreciate why it had influenced our positive responses to her multiple requests. An expert witness who offered to explain why some neurodivergent females enter conflict with former friends was not permitted to speak. We were prevented from sharing crucial written evidence from a Judge, psychiatrist and the university where she’d studied.
We submitted 180 pages of personal and professional testimonies and witness statements from patients, friends, and colleagues to the GMC and MPTS. They admitted that this was one of the most supportive and detailed submissions that they had ever received. Furthermore, multiple others offered to testify verbally on my behalf, and we selected several whose testimonies were later described by the committee as being very powerful. They included people who had known my accuser as well as us, although they were forbidden to comment on her behaviour towards ourselves and others.
I accepted that I should not have accessed the blood test without written consent and apologised for doing so. The committee agreed that I had acted in good faith to support a family friend. I apologised for appearing to mislead by omitting the restraining order from my job application form. The committee suggested this amounted to a single episode of dishonesty but accepted that it was out of character and would not recur. After explaining my rationale for doing so, I apologised for staying in touch with my accuser. I accepted that I had misjudged the situation and used phrases which had upset her. I regretted the fact that I had unwittingly caused her distress. The MPTS agreed that my apology was genuine, demonstrated insight and that I was most unlikely to initiate further contact with her. She had never been my patient. Although I’d navigated over four decades of clinical practice without a single substantiated complaint, the MPTS decided that it was in the public interest to suspend me from practising medicine in the UK for 6 months from July 2022, despite the pleas of my patients and colleagues.
CONSEQUENCES
My wife gave evidence to the Hearing, testifying as to the nature of the support we had provided to my accuser at her request over many years. Due to the adversarial nature of the process and the untruths propagated during it, she went into a recurrent cardiac dysrhythmia. This persisted subsequently, usually triggered by further contact from my accuser and her parents. She has now undergone a procedure to try to control this and remains very vulnerable. In the immediate aftermath of the Hearing, my wife’s health obviously took precedence over everything else, and we did not explore the option of an Appeal.
Several patients expressed their concern in writing to the GMC, both in advance of and during the hearing, over the adverse effects on their condition of any suspension. Their anxiety was entirely justified but the GMC ignored their concerns. Their solicitor asked my Clinical Director why we hadn’t appointed a locum. He pointed out that reliable locum consultants with appropriate clinical expertise are a rare breed, and that the GMC had given the Trust no indication that one would be required. Due to the complex nature of the clinical services I provide, some of my patients were unable to access essential intervention during my time off work. Predictably their condition sometimes deteriorated as a result. It is hard to see how the GMC can justify their decision as having been in the public and patient interest.
We believe that my accuser contacted local newspapers both the day prior to, and the day after, the GMC Hearing. They reported that I had asked her to come on holiday with me, and that I had bombarded her with questions about her sex life. These claims were not only untrue but were debunked at the Hearing where it was acknowledged that there was no hint of sexual motivation on my part. The papers later apologised for their error, but the damage had been done. My mental health had already suffered, and I’d needed psychiatric support prior to the Hearing, but this blow below the belt was almost one too many. Thankfully my wonderful family and friends pulled me through my crisis of confidence, but I now fully appreciate why so many doctors have committed suicide on impulse when subjected to the vagaries of the GMC (1). The fear of the resultant public loss of reputation is hard to imagine but suffice it to say that four decades of selfless devotion can feel meaningless after four minutes of enduring misinformed tabloid humiliation.
I produced medical reports for ‘Reprieve’ who work to facilitate access to medical care for those unfortunate enough to be trapped in Refugee Camps. I reluctantly gave up this role once the MPTS delivered their verdict in case it breached the conditions. My accuser had befriended the refugees and orphans we support in East Africa, sending them letters and presents and promising to visit them, only to later claim I’d used them against her. Their subsistence and education were reduced because of my legal expenses and loss of income. My medical work in East Africa was also placed in jeopardy but my colleagues were insightful and supportive. My accuser's claims, along with the GMC's response, caused adverse effects for vulnerable people.
Indeed, the university specifically apologised to me for the difficulties that their student caused myself and our project work. I asked several colleagues to read the formal MPTS determination. These included our regional GMC representative. Their conclusion was that I was guilty only of naivety and of caring too much: I agree with them. I accept that I made mistakes in supporting and caring for my accuser. I’ve reflected for 5 years and learned much from my experience. I’ve apologised for causing distress by trying too hard and it won’t happen again. The adverse impact has been highly significant for my family, patients and students in the UK and abroad. The public want their doctors to care, but this felt like a high price to pay for caring too much.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Over the last 6 years, my accuser and her family have contacted us both directly and indirectly, via social media, friends, and several organisations, on multiple occasions. I have avoided them since 2017 and we have not responded to their provocation which has recently intensified. In the nine months since I returned to work, they have contacted various police forces to claim they’ve seen me in places I haven’t visited, that they received messages I didn't send, and that I caused my accuser’s personal and professional difficulties by ‘threatening and abusing’ her. My accuser has twice telephoned my Charity Lead in Africa, despite having never met them. Recently she and her mother visited a refugee-support organisation we volunteer with to tell them I am ‘a dangerous doctor’ whose motive for supporting refugees is ‘to gain access to vulnerable people’. None of these organisations believe my accusers, and some reported her to the police. One police force have already spoken to her, and I've just been contacted by another who are presently investigating her actions.
The GMC admitted to me that they now recognise that they can be weaponised against doctors. We have just learned that my accusers sent them a 60-page document, with further false allegations, earlier this year. This document describes the domestic abuse that she witnessed and directly contradicts her denial of this at the MPTS Hearing which damaged my defence. At the GMC’s behest, we have recently forwarded them other crucial evidence which was ruled inadmissible at the Hearing. In the light of these revelations, we have now formally requested that the GMC reassess the decision to suspend me for 6 months last year, acknowledge the part they have played in propagating adverse outcomes and apologise for their errors.
Since I returned to work in January, we’ve built a school in South Sudan to facilitate the return of the refugees we support to their hometown, so that they can share their newly acquired Kenyan education with their own people. This will ‘pay it forward’ while offering sustainable long-term employment for them. Despite my accuser’s unfounded suspicions of my dastardly ulterior motives, we continue to fund our other charitable and medical work in Africa through my NHS income as shown in my website: www.clivekelly.org. My legal team estimate that my accusers have cost UK taxpayers £250,000 over the last six years. In addition, the significant expenses incurred by the GMC and the MPTS contribute to the ever-increasing premiums all of us pay in our annual GMC registration fees. Increasing dissatisfaction within the medical profession has recently evolved into overt anger against the GMC over some of their recent MPTS referrals (2).
This led to an independent review recommending that no doctor should be referred to the MPTS for a Hearing without prior referral for regional resolution, unless patient safety is compromised, or a criminal conviction obtained (3). Had these recommendations been applied, I am assured no action would have been taken. The MPTS cannot be exempted from criticism either. It appears that their decision-making may be flawed through lack of specialist knowledge. At my Hearing it was apparent that they did not understand my accusers condition and were completely unaware of her potential for misrepresentation (4). The inconsistency in their judgements is self-evident with similar ‘offences’ attracting widely different ‘punishments’, and similar terms of suspension being handed down for grossly unequal perceived misdemeanours (5, 6). Unless and until consistency and transparency of these processes is evident, doctors will remain suspicious of both the GMC and the MPTS. This is in part because such determinations are made on the ‘balance of probability’ requiring only a 51% likelihood of a correct decision. By contrast, the legal system operates on a ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ basis. Surely highly committed and trained professionals deserve the benefit of the doubt? Until it is offered, the threat of a GMC referral will remain the fourth factor in the departure of increasing numbers of doctors at all grades from the NHS. The deaths of 30 doctors in 5 years under GMC investigation proves this is at least as valid a consideration as Brexit, the Pandemic, and the Pensions trap. If the Government is serious about retaining medics, it needs to prioritise an urgent effective review of the GMC, as it has recently done for pensions.
LESSONS LEARNED
Everyone makes mistakes and we must learn from them. I wish I hadn’t agreed to provide support to my accuser and her family when she asked for it. It is too easy to get drawn into complex situations. In today’s increasingly paranoid society, it sadly appears that it can be dangerous to help friends, even when this involves non-medical matters. The betrayal and bewilderment I experienced from supporting a family friend was dangerously destabilising. It is important that doctors recognise that certain situations and conditions can be associated with an increased risk, not just of self-harm, but of harm to those whose only intention is to provide help. Although I was clearly naïve in my response, we need to better understand the complex needs of such individuals and develop improved formal social and professional networks to provide these.Furthermore, doctors would be wrong to believe, as I did, that our professional governing body would protect us if we are subjected to misrepresentation by others. The GMC sometimes take years to bring a doctor to an MPTS hearing, often resulting in the doctor being judged by standards that have altered significantly over the intervening period, exemplified by the ‘Me Too’ movement which began in late 2017. Additionally, despite the GMC’s admission that they are now more aware of potential manipulation, it would be unwise to assume that they will necessarily prove more sympathetic to other doctors than they were to me. In the light of the recent vote of ‘no confidence’ in the leaderships of the GMC and MPTS by the BMA membership (7), it feels that most doctors still do not trust either of these bodies. Society and social norms have changed a great deal in the last 6 years, accelerated by Covid-19, yet the GMC have been slow to respond and to adjust their processes and attitudes. It remains incumbent on the GMC to ensure that their verbal acceptance of recent recommendations is reinforced by their prompt adoption and adherence (3).
REFERENCES
1 GMC publish report on doctors deaths during fitness to practise investigations - Fitness to Practise News
2 Abbasi K. The GMC has lost the profession’s trust and respect. BMJ 2022;377:o1374 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o1374
3 Singh I and Forde M. The GMC’s handling of the case of Dr Manjula Arora: an independent learning review November 2022 Handling of the case of Dr Manjula Arora an independent learning review (gmc-uk.org)
4 Berney T, Bevan R, Brugha T et al. The psychiatric management of adults with autism. Royal College of Psychiatrists Report. July 2020. CR 228, 5.2 p37-40
5 Dyer C. Consultant suspended for travelling on tube without tickets. BMJ, 2023;380:p707 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p707
6 Dyer C. Leading oncologist who overtreated patients is found to have impaired fitness to practise. BMJ 2021;375:n2882 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n2882
7 Mahase E. Doctors call for leadership teams of GMC and MPTS to be dismissed. BMJ 2023;382:p1554
BACKGROUND
I am an experienced Consultant Physician based in the North of England and divide my time between clinical and academic commitments. I also volunteer in Asia and Africa where I run both humanitarian charities and medical initiatives. We had supported a girl who sat next to our daughter at school through personal issues, taking her on pilgrimage and expeditions at her parents’ request. She got back in touch with us in her twenties, and asked us for a lot more help, saying we cared more for her than her parents did. In early 2017 she told me her mother was in Hospital. She shared details and, believing her mother had consented, I offered to help her mother too. Six months later,
the girl asked if she could join my African research team. Her mother expressed concern about her daughter’s involvement, so I initially declined her application. The girl intensified her requests for my academic input, asking for help with her master’s interview and advice on job applications. She reapplied to join my research team via the University, was interviewed and offered a funded place,
providing her parents were informed.
However, she didn’t tell them and when I suggested telling them myself, she forbade me from contacting them. She later claimed that she intended I should not contact her again either, but we didn’t interpret her comments this way. We felt that withdrawing her offer might trigger adverse personal and professional outcomes. She had a history of mental health issues with family conflict and serious self-harm. She said her parents had thrown her out. I was professionally advised that a catastrophic outcome may result if she felt I had also abandoned her. Two days later, I was reported to the police: she told them that she thought I was harassing her. Unaware of this development, I left to plan my research in Africa the next day and stayed in contact with each member of my research team, including the girl, while setting up the projects. On my return home, my wife told me that her father had demanded I contact him, which I did. My accuser contacted the police and the GMC claiming that I was abusing and harassing her.
GMC INVOLVEMENT
My accuser neither admitted that her father had asked me to contact him, nor that she had just accepted a research place with me. Once I shared her two thousand messages, emails, texts and telephone calls, the police dropped the charge of simple harassment my accuser wanted to bring. She then contacted the General Medical Council (GMC) asking them to investigate me in March 2018, and three months later she visited the town in Africa where I was based with my other students. I was warned of the danger and avoided her, yet she applied for a restraining order. I successfully appealed this, and the Judge ruled she ‘had not been entirely honest with the police’. He said that no intervention would have been necessary if she had told the truth. The GMC asked me to attend an interim tribunal in 2018 and deemed no sanctions necessary. However, my accuser persisted, sending the GMC a 300-page document with multiple false statements which they admitted was contradictory. Over the next 4 years the GMC fluctuated. At one stage they told us that they may take no further action as my accuser was uncooperative. They apologised to me in writing admitting that they had made several errors in their handling of my
case. My accuser continued to contact the GMC on multiple occasions, falsely claiming that I was still in touch with her. We later learned via her father that she had subsequently received a formal diagnosis which explained but did not excuse her behaviour. In fact, she and her parents regularly approached us directly and indirectly, despite written instructions to desist. In July 2022 the GMC referred me to the MPTS. They were concerned that I had accessed her mother’s blood test without her written consent. Whilst this was true, I had done so incorrectly believing that I had verbal consent via my accuser. She told the GMC that she had only mentioned her mother’s illness to distract me from the fact that she hadn’t contacted me for three days. This was demonstrably untrue: I shared 29 messages she had bombarded me with in those 72 hours. The GMC were also concerned that I had not referenced the restraining order in a locum application.
Again, this was true, but I’d sought and followed professional advice on exactly what to include in my response to an ambiguous question. My request for a meeting with personnel to discuss this had been ignored. The GMC’s main issue was undoubtedly my accuser’s harassment claim. My decision to stay in touch with her while working overseas was based on professional advice about acting in her best interests as her own wishes often fluctuated. My messages had attempted to offer reassurance whilst emphasising her responsibilities. She claimed that I had caused her alarm and distress by maintaining this contact in the weeks following her successful research application.
MPTS HEARING
The MPTS hearing was held over a 5-week period online in mid-2022. Disclosing her diagnosis, my accuser requested special measures. She insisted that I turned my camera off while she gave evidence. No-one could see my reactions when she gave false testimony on 18 occasions under oath. She denied that she had shared distressing personal issues with me, greatly reducing our opportunity to explain my concerned response to specific adverse events she’d shared. She said she’d never asked us for help and claimed that we were never friends. She admitted that she had not meant the apologies and promises that she'd given me. My accuser claimed that I’d stalked her but wouldn’t admit she’d asked me to take her swimming, shopping, and had bought us presents. She vehemently denied asking me for help with her job applications and refused to agree that she’d been interviewed for a place on the research team. Neither my wife nor I were allowed to address her misrepresentations. We were refused permission to share the 650 pages of correspondence my accuser had sent me. However, the GMC solicitor sent their full unredacted bundle to the MPTS in advance of the hearing and sent a copy of the full bundle directly to my accuser, both against accepted protocol. Neither the GMC nor the MPTS appeared to understand the effects of autism on female behaviour. They failed to appreciate how her condition had influenced both her behaviour and our responses to her multiple requests. The GMC barrister spent hours trying to persuade me that I had gaslit my accuser when the opposite applied. I was not allowed to provide an expert witness who wanted to explain why some neurodivergent females enter conflict with former friends. We were prevented from sharing crucial written evidence from a Judge, psychiatrist and the university where she’d studied. We submitted 180 pages of personal and professional testimonies and witness statements from patients, friends, and colleagues to the GMC and MPTS. They admitted that this was one of the most supportive and detailed submissions that they had ever received. Furthermore, multiple others offered to testify verbally on my behalf, and we selected several whose testimonies were later described by the committee as being very powerful. They included people who had known my accuser as well as us, although they were forbidden to comment on her behaviour towards ourselves and others.
I accepted that I should not have accessed the blood test without written consent and apologised for doing so. The committee agreed that I had acted in good faith to support a family friend. I apologised for appearing to mislead by omitting the restraining order from my job application form. The committee suggested this amounted to a single episode of dishonesty but accepted that it was out of character and would not recur. After explaining my rationale for doing so, I apologised for staying in touch with my accuser. I accepted that I had misjudged the situation and used phrases which had upset her. I regretted the fact that I had unwittingly caused her distress. The MPTS agreed that my apology was genuine, demonstrated insight and that I was most unlikely to initiate further contact with her. She had never been my patient. Although I’d navigated over four decades of clinical practice without a single substantiated complaint, the MPTS decided that it was in the public interest to suspend me from practising medicine in the UK for 6 months from July 2022, despite the pleas of my patients and colleagues.
CONSEQUENCES
My wife gave evidence to the Hearing, testifying as to the nature of the support we had provided to my accuser at her request over many years. Due to the adversarial nature of the process and the untruths propagated during it, she went into a recurrent cardiac dysrhythmia. This persisted subsequently, usually triggered by further contact from my accuser and her parents. She has now undergone a procedure to try to control this and remains very vulnerable. In the immediate aftermath of the Hearing, my wife’s health obviously took precedence over everything else, and we did not explore the option of an Appeal.
Several patients expressed their concern in writing to the GMC, both in advance of and during the hearing, over the adverse effects on their condition of any suspension. Their anxiety was entirely justified but the GMC ignored their concerns. Their solicitor asked my Clinical Director why we hadn’t appointed a locum. He pointed out that reliable locum consultants with appropriate clinical expertise are a rare breed, and that the GMC had given the Trust no indication that one would be required. Due to the complex nature of the clinical services I provide, some of my patients were unable to access essential intervention during my time off work. Predictably their condition sometimes deteriorated as a result. It is hard to see how the GMC can justify their decision as having been in the public and patient interest.
We believe that my accuser contacted local newspapers both the day prior to, and the day after, the GMC Hearing. They reported that I had asked her to come on holiday with me, and that I had bombarded her with questions about her sex life. These claims were not only untrue but were debunked at the Hearing where it was acknowledged that there was no hint of sexual motivation on my part. The papers later apologised for their error, but the damage had been done. My mental health had already suffered, and I’d needed psychiatric support prior to the Hearing, but this blow below the belt was almost one too many. Thankfully my wonderful family and friends pulled me through my crisis of confidence, but I now fully appreciate why so many doctors have committed suicide on impulse when subjected to the vagaries of the GMC
(1). The fear of the resultant public loss of reputation is hard to imagine but suffice it to say that four decades of selfless devotion can feel meaningless after four minutes of enduring misinformed tabloid humiliation.
I produced medical reports for ‘Reprieve’ who work to facilitate access to medical care for those unfortunate enough to be trapped in Refugee Camps. I reluctantly gave up this role once the MPTS delivered their verdict in case it breached the conditions. My accuser had befriended the refugees and orphans we support in East Africa, sending them letters and presents and promising to visit them, only to later claim I’d used them against her. Their subsistence and education were reduced because of my legal expenses and loss of income. My medical work in East Africa was also placed in
jeopardy but my colleagues were insightful and supportive. Indeed, the university specifically apologised to me for the difficulties that their student caused myself and our project work. I asked several colleagues to read the formal MPTS determination. These included our regional GMC representative. Their conclusion was that I was guilty only of naivety and of caring too much: I agree with them. I accept that I made mistakes in supporting and caring for my accuser. I’ve reflected for 5 years and learned much from my experience. I’ve apologised for causing distress by trying too hard and it won’t happen again. The adverse effects have been highly significant for my family, patients and students in the UK and abroad. The public want their doctors to care, but this felt like a high price to pay for caring too much.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Over the last 6 years, my accuser and her parents have contacted us both directly and indirectly, via social media, friends, and several organisations, on multiple occasions. I have avoided them since 2017 and we have not responded to their provocation which has recently intensified. In the six months since I returned to work, they have contacted various police forces to claim they’ve seen me in places I haven’t visited, that they received messages I never sent, and that I caused my accuser’s personal and professional difficulties by ‘threatening and abusing’ her. My accuser has twice telephoned my Charity Lead in Africa, despite having never met them. Recently she and her mother visited a refugee-support organisation we volunteer with to tell them I am ‘a dangerous doctor’ whose motive for supporting refugees is ‘to gain access to vulnerable people’. None of these organisations believe my accusers. The police have now spoken to my accusers and a separate force is investigating the situation at my request. The GMC admitted to me that they now recognise that
they can be weaponised against doctors. We have just learned that my accusers sent a 60-page document, with further false allegations, to the GMC earlier this year. This document describes the domestic abuse to which she was exposed and directly contradicts her steadfast denial of this abuse at the MPTS Hearing which damaged my defence. At the GMC’s behest, we have now forwarded them other crucial evidence which was ruled inadmissible at the Hearing. In the light of these revelations, we have now formally requested that the GMC reassess the decision to suspend me for 6 months last year.
Since I returned to work in January, we’ve built a school in South Sudan to facilitate the return of the refugees we support to their hometown, so that they can share their newly acquired Kenyan education with their own people. This will ‘pay it forward’ while offering sustainable long-term employment for them. Despite my accuser’s unfounded suspicions of my dastardly ulterior motives, we continue to fund our other charitable and medical work in Africa through my NHS income as shown in my website: www.clivekelly.org. My legal team estimate that my accusers have cost UK taxpayers £250,000 over the last six years. In addition, the significant expenses incurred by the GMC and the MPTS contribute to the ever-increasing premiums all of us pay in our annual GMC registration fees. Increasing dissatisfaction within the medical profession has recently evolved into overt anger against the GMC over some of their recent MPTS referrals
(2) This led to an independent review recommending that no doctor should be referred to the MPTS for a Hearing without prior referral for regional resolution, unless patient safety is compromised, or a criminal conviction obtained
(3). Had these recommendations been applied, I am assured no action would have been taken. The MPTS cannot be exempted from criticism either. It appears that their decision-making may be flawed through lack of specialist knowledge. At my Hearing it was apparent that they had no knowledge of female autism and were completely unaware of the potential for misrepresentation
(4). The inconsistency in their judgements is self-evident with similar ‘offences’ attracting widely different ‘punishments’, and similar terms of suspension being handed down for grossly unequal perceived misdemeanours
(5, 6). Unless and until consistency and transparency of these processes is evident, doctors will remain suspicious of both the GMC and the MPTS. This is in part because such determinations are made on the ‘balance of probability’ requiring only a 51% likelihood of a correct
decision. By contrast, the legal system operates on a ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ basis. Surely highly committed and trained professionals deserve the benefit of the doubt? Until it is offered, the threat of a GMC referral will remain the fourth factor in the departure of increasing numbers of doctors at all grades from the NHS. The deaths of 30 doctors in 5 years under GMC investigation proves this is at least as valid a consideration as Brexit, the Pandemic, and the Pensions trap. If the Government is serious about retaining medics, it needs to prioritise an urgent effective review of the GMC, as it has recently done for pensions.
LESSONS LEARNED
Everyone makes mistakes and we must learn from them. I wish I hadn’t agreed to provide support to my accuser and her family when she asked for it. It is too easy to get drawn into complex situations. In today’s increasingly paranoid society, it sadly appears that it can be dangerous to help friends, even when this involves non-medical matters. The betrayal and bewilderment I experienced from supporting a family friend was dangerously destabilising. It is important that doctors recognise that certain situations and conditions can be associated with an increased risk, not just of self-harm, but of harm to those whose only intention is to provide help. Although I was clearly naïve in my response, we need to better understand the complex needs of such individuals and develop improved formal social and professional networks to provide these.Furthermore, doctors would be wrong to believe, as I did, that our professional governing body would protect us if we are subjected to misrepresentation by others. The GMC sometimes take years to bring a doctor to an MPTS hearing, often resulting in the doctor being judged by standards that have altered significantly over the intervening period, exemplified by the ‘Me Too’ movement which began in late 2017. Additionally, despite the GMC’s admission that they are now more aware ofpotential manipulation, it would be unwise to assume that they will necessarily prove more sympathetic to other doctors than they were to me. In the light of the recent vote of ‘no confidence’ in the leaderships of the GMC and MPTS by the BMA membership
(7), it feels that most doctors still do not trust either of these bodies. Society and social norms have changed a great deal in the last 6
years, accelerated by Covid, yet the GMC have been slow to respond and to adjust their processes and attitudes. It remains incumbent on the GMC to ensure that their verbal acceptance of recentrecommendations is reinforced by their prompt adoption and adherence (3).
REFERENCES
1 GMC publish report on doctors' deaths during fitness to practise investigations - Fitness to Practise News
2 Abbasi K. The GMC has lost the profession’s trust and respect. BMJ 2022;377:o1374 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o1374
3 Singh I and Forde M. The GMC’s handling of the case of Dr Manjula Arora: an independent learning review November 2022 Handling of the case of Dr Manjula Arora an independent learning review (gmc-uk.org)
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