12 Complaints against Legal Representatives of the GMC

This is a Freedom of Information Request result that was sent by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. These statistics are interesting as is the response of the SRA. We have often postulated that the reason that complaints against representatives of the GMC are not taken up is because the SRA employs an an ex GMC henchman as their member. It is difficult to see how the public can have confidence in the SRA's decision making nevertheless in conversation with Anthony Townsend, he denies there is a conflict of interest after his own assessment of the matter in question. He also denies the existence of a list of "difficult doctors" at the GMC. This conflicts with the current statement by a ex GMC Committee member which states

"The GMC dropped the case and Jeffries then reported her to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority BUT the real rub here is that the CE of the SRA is none other than Antony Towsend who from 1991 until 2001 was a senior official investigating docs in the GMC and he especially kept the list of what he described to me as difficult doctors. He went from the GMC to be CE of the Dental Council and then onto the SRA"

Freedom of Information Request – Our Ref: FOI/BS/326

I write further to my emails of 13 and 14 January 2010.

Please find below the response to your request for information under the Law Society's Freedom of Information Code of Practice ("the Code").

Your request was for the following information regarding Antony Townsend::

Please confirm

1. When he worked at the General Medical Council. The time periods would do. During this period it is rumoured that he had a informal list of doctors who had uncomfortable personalities. Please will Mr Townsend confirm whether this is true or not.

This is personal data and is being withheld under section 16 of the Code

2. During that period please confirm which solicitors at the GMC he had day to day contact with.
This information is not held by the Law Society.

3. In the last 10 years, how many complaints has the SRA or its predecessor received regarding legal representatives of the GMC. If so, what were the outcome of these complaints. Please provide this in a table.

Final Outcome

Complaint/Allegation upheld but no action 1
Complaint/Allegation not Upheld 12
Customer has not responded 1
Complaint outside our jurisdiction 1
Within jurisdiction but investigation declined 2
Grand Total 17

Please see the following explanation to put the information in the above table into context:

The table is limited to those allegations of misconduct where either the subject firm was recorded as the GMC or the subject solicitor was recorded on the SRA database as employed by GMC at the point of the complaint. So it would not include any complaints made about solicitors acting for GMC where they were not employed by the GMC. We do not have a way of identifying solicitors acting for GMC, if they were employed by another firm that was the subject of the complaint. So the table does not include information about solicitors instructed by the GMC.

4. Please outline whether the solicitors complained about in point 3 also worked with Anthony Townsend at the GMC.

This information is not held by the Law Society.

I hope the above information is of use.

Yours sincerely




Bob Stanley
Information Compliance Manager - Legal Services
The Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL
t: 020 7242 1222 (x4117)
f: 020 7320 5685
www.lawsociety.org.uk
P Go green – keep it on screen

Norman Lamb MP Calls for Public Inquiry into Gosport Memorial Hospital

Norman Lamb MP of the Liberal Democrats has called for a Public Inquiry into the sham treatment received by the victims and their relatives of Gosport Memorial Hospital. Jane Barton's future should be sealed by the General Medical Council. 51 days later, the General Medical Council are still deciding on what to do. Public interest appears to be balanced between the dead and the pitiful defences put forward by Dr Jane Barton's barrister Mr Langdale. There should not be any problem with striking Jane Barton off the Register due to the example set by the GMC . These are the examples.

1. GMC v Gopakumar - An innocent doctor struck off due to inappropriate examination of a patient".
2. GMC v Varma - Junior doctor struck off one year after qualification for minor application form problems during a time he wasn't even registered with the GMC.
3. GMC v Satya - Junior doctor struck off one year after qualification for a minor issue with his UCAS form.
4. GMC v Vaidya - Consultant struck off due to "attitudinal problem". No patient concerns.


These are just a few minor issues that have engaged the striking off process. In each of the above cases, the GMC took a few days to decide. They had absolutely no problems in striking off the above doctors. In the meantime, Dr Jane Barton has enjoyed a lax interim sanction despite effecting the end of many lives.

Cat and mice

It is a high time that regulatory bodies learn how to hunt mice. Like a lazy cat fed regularly. for example, the General Medical Council gets any money it demands form its subscribers (doctors).

Badly behaved doctors who mess up as hospital managers in NHS have been allowed to have full use of the prosecutory machine that regulatory body has at its disposal.

GMC turns a blind eye to lying Expert Witnesses despite huge volumes of evidence that would allow GMC to do their job properly and strike a number of doctors off the medical register.

Instead of taking legal action against the doctors who abused GMC and cost GMC huge amounts of money and patients their lives, GMC lawyers are saying nothing. Nobody at GMC thought of claiming the damages from those doctors for what they did to GMC as they do not appear to have the legal support to do it.

Is it because GMC lawyers are terrified of having to act also against their own colleagues who are lying on behalf of the GMC in courts on regular basis when they screw up innocent doctors' cases?

When the state machinery descends into a corrupt state inevitably there are social consequencies, eventually. When truth does not matter, and science does not matter what kind of health do lawyers expect for themselves?

I guess many live in a fantasy land where they are special persons and especially good things happen to them when they need it. No botched up medical jobs on lawyers, of course. That does not exist. Perhaps, all lawyers think they are simply dying of old age.

It is not charitable to let people die out of laziness.

What kind of personal development plan do lawyers working at GMC have? I have no idea.