GMC strikes Southall off medical register for serious professional misconduct

The paediatrician David Southall has been struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council after a hearing found that he inappropriately accused a mother of murdering her 10 year old child.

Dr Southall, 59, was also found to have removed children’s medical records from hospital files and stored them where other care givers could not access them. The GMC’s disciplinary panel ruled that his acts amounted to serious professional misconduct.

It is the second time that the GMC has found Dr Southall guilty of making inappropriate accusations of murder against a parent. He was barred from child protection work for three years in 2004 after he accused Steve Clark of murdering his son, having watched a television interview with the father.

In the current case Dr Southall was found to have accused a mother, called Mrs M by the GMC, of suffocating and strangling her child, who was found hanged in a closet. Mrs M, who now lives in Australia, told her story to the Mail on Sunday newspaper this weekend. Her second son was taken into care on Dr Southall’s recommendation but later returned home.

She told the GMC hearing that Dr Southall had been “aggressive and sarcastic” when questioning her about the death. Jacqueline Mitton, chairing the GMC panel, described Mrs M as a “clear, honest, and credible witness.”

Dr Southall’s actions, the panel ruled, were inappropriate, added to the distress of a bereaved person, and were an abuse of his professional position.

Dr Southall was also found to have removed medical files from hospital records and stored them as “special case files.” This “was not in itself damaging,” the panel ruled, “provided that there was sufficient internal signposting” to permit other hospital staff to access the information. But the panel found that such access was lacking in the cases of three children, effectively removing the information from the health system. This practice “damaged the integrity” of the children’s hospital records, the GMC found.

Dr Southall further damaged the integrity of two children’s files, the GMC found, in bringing them with him from the Royal Brompton Hospital to the North Staffordshire Hospital, where the children had never been treated. But other files stored on his computer were not being kept inappropriately, the panel found, because the information in them was still also in the hospital system.

Several of Dr Southall’s colleagues came forward as character witnesses and to provide supportive testimonials.

Noting that Dr Southall had never apologised to any of the complainants in his disciplinary cases, Dr Mitton told Dr Southall: “The panel is particularly concerned by your lack of insight into the multiplicity of your failings over a long period.

“In all the circumstances the panel has concluded that you have deep seated attitudinal problems and that your misconduct is so serious that it is fundamentally incompatible with your continuing to be a registered medical practitioner.”

Patricia Hamilton, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said she was “saddened and disappointed to learn of this judgment.”

Dr Hamilton said, “David Southall has made a major contribution to child health, both nationally and internationally, and has been a strong advocate for children during a distinguished career. Sadly, there are circumstances where parents may have harmed their children, and in these situations health professionals have a statutory duty to act on their concerns and look after the best interests of the child.

“We are very concerned that paediatricians and social workers will be deterred from undertaking child protection work and that children and young people may come to harm.”