GMC must pay legal costs for “unreasonably” pursuing doctors who led trust where rogue surgeon worked

The General Medical Council (GMC) has been ordered to pay the costs of the former chief executive and the medical director of the trust that employed the rogue surgeon Ian Paterson, after a tribunal found that the regulator had acted unreasonably in pursuing a case against the two.

Ian Cunliffe, former medical director of the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, and Mark Goldman, its former chief executive, were brought before a medical practitioners tribunal having been accused of failing to protect patients from the risk of harm from Paterson. But after an investigation lasting more than eight years and a 78 day hearing, the tribunal in October 2022 found none of the …