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New Southall hearing
2008 Aug 5
Paediatrician David Southall faces another five-day hearing before the General Medical Council this month.
Southall was banned from child protection work in 2004, after his involvement in the Sally Clark case raised questions
about qualified/protected disclosure in the interests of child protection.
Later, in December 2007, he was struck off the medical register on a different matter, and resigned from North
Staffordshire NHS Trust shortly afterwards. But he was restored to the register within weeks, after the GMC admitted it
had followed the wrong rules and was not entitled to strike him off at that time. Southall, with 40 complaints to his
name, claims to be the victim of a witch hunt and will appeal later this year.
Meanwhile, in J une 2008 the GMC found that Southall and his colleagues had no case to answer in another complaint
which had been ongoing before the GMC and the courts for almost 18 years, and that the GMC had breached the
doctors' right to a fair trial. J uly brought further success, with the completion of a Attorney Generals review into
so-called Special Case files kept by Southall and his colleagues.
Fearing that they may contain information that should have been disclosed during prosecutions, the CPS located and
examined 4344 of the 4449 known SC files, then compared them with surviving prosecution files. They identified 9 SC
files associated with 7 prosecutions, but found no evidence of a failure to disclose information. They did, however,
recommend that SC files should no longer be kept separately from medical records, in part to avoid similar
investigations in future.
Now, in the annual review of the GMC's 2004 decision, Southall is seeking permission to resume his child protection
work. The hearing opens on 11 August 2008 at the GMC's Manchester branch.
Related links
GMCs guidance on child protection