The Tribunal found that Dr Demanya had failed to diagnose sepsis in a 75-year-old woman whilst working as a locum at a hospital. He then acted dishonestly by falsifying medical records to suggest that he had acted promptly when he had not. He attempted to conceal the falsifications by crossing out entries on the medical records, and then persisted in his dishonesty by making false representations at an inquest into the patient’s death.
The Tribunal concluded that his conduct was fundamentally incompatible with continued registration.
Dr Demanya challenged the Tribunal’s decision on the ground – amongst others – that the Tribunal had placed “undue weight” on maintaining public confidence in the medical profession and proper professional standards. Unsurprisingly, Dias J rejected this argument, reaffirming the strategic importance of section 1 of the Medical Act 1983. As he rather poetically put it:
“The high ambitions set down in the over-arching objective achieve nothing if they merely remain fine words. They must be respected, taken seriously and given full effect as living breathing guarantors to members of the public vulnerable through illness that the medical professionals who treat them can be trusted without a second thought. That cannot be said of Dr Demanya”.
I suspect this reference to “living breathing guarantors” will find its way into future judgments.
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