Doctors aren’t entitled to have disciplinary cases heard by independent panels, court rules

Doctors whose employer takes disciplinary proceedings against them have no right to have their case heard by independent panels, the High Court has ruled in an important judgment.

Rajiv Puri, a consultant urologist who was sacked by Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for shouting and aggressive behaviour, argued that neither the disciplinary panel that took the decision to dismiss him nor the appeal panel set up to hear his appeal was sufficiently impartial (BMJ 2010;341:c5834, doi:10.1136/bmj.c5834).

The three person disciplinary panel included one member external to the trust, and the appeal panel was made up entirely of members or employees of the trust. Mr Puri argued that this breached his right under …