BMJ  2005;331:126 (16 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7509.126

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GMC clears doctors who signed cremation forms for Shipman

London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Four GPs who signed the cremation forms of patients murdered by serial killer Harold Shipman have been cleared of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council.

Doctors Jeremy Dirckze, Stephen Farrar, Alastair MacGillivray, and Susan Booth, who all worked close to Dr Shipman's surgery in Hyde, Greater Manchester, between them signed 214 cremation form Cs for Dr Shipman's deceased patients between 1979 and 1997. Of these, 124 were later found to have been unlawfully killed.

The four GPs were accused of failing to notice coincidences between the pattern of Shipman's home visits and the deaths of his patients ( BMJ 2005;331: 68[Free Full Text], 9 July). But the GMC panel, sitting in Manchester, accepted the doctors' arguments that they could not have been reasonably expected to account for behaviour as extraordinary as Dr Shipman's.

Summing up, Linda Buchanan, chairing the GMC's Fitness to Practise Panel, said that . . . [Full text of this article]

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