Court overturns misconduct findings

Two consultant obstetricians have won a High Court order overturning as "unlawful" findings of professional misconduct against them by the Medical Council over their 1998 reports about the obstetric practice of Dr Michael Neary at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.

The judgment of Mr Justice Peter Kelly upholding the challenges by Dr John Murphy and Professor Walter Prendiville has significant implications for the future conduct of inquiries into allegations of professional misconduct against doctors.

The judge yesterday strongly criticised the handling of the case by the council and its Fitness to Practise Committee (FPC) and also ruled it would be unjust and pointless to return the matter to the council for fresh consideration. This was due to the passage of time, the fact the council could not retrospectively apply an "expected standards" test of professional misconduct, the length of time the matter was hanging over the doctors and the "undoubted damage" done to them, he said.

The judge found the FPC failed to give any reasons for its majority decision that the doctors were guilty of professional misconduct and that both doctors were left "absolutely in the dark" as to the basis for those findings.

This was all the more so because the committee report did not specify the evidence before it, he said.

Noting the case was the first challenge of its type to procedures followed by the council for some 30 years, he further set out how the council should in future deal with reports from the FPC.

The proceedings arose after Prof Prendiville, Dr Murphy and Dr Bernard Stuart, of the Coombe Women's Hospital, were asked in 1998 by the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association to review files on a number of Dr Neary's patients at the Lourdes hospital.

The doctors produced reports opposing the suspension of Dr Neary - pending a review by the Institute of Obstretics and Gynaecology in Dublin - on the basis of Dr Neary's undertaking that he would not perform any more Caesarean hysterectomies without the agreement of another consultant. Dr Neary did adhere to that undertaking.

Dr Neary was later struck off the Medical Register arising from performing unnecessary Caeserean hysterectomies at the hospital.

Acting on a complaint by the Patient Focus group about the three obstetricians, the FPC conducted an inquiry and the council in February upheld the FPC recommendations that they be found guilty of professional misconduct.While the FPC recommended sanctions be imposed on the three, the Medical Council decided to impose no sanctions.

The judge noted an "extraordinary" press release issued for the Medical Council had set out its decision upholding the findings of misconduct but made no reference to the fact no sanctions were being imposed.

Prof Prendiville, of South Circular Road, Dublin, had been found guilty by the FPC of one allegation of professional misconduct relating to the failure to apply the standard of conduct expected by a medical practitioner whilst compiling the report. Dr Murphy, of the Blackrock Clinic and a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist with the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street, had been found guilty of three allegations of "professional misconduct" on the basis of the same "expected standards" test.