In Response to http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hadiza-bawagarba-british-doctor-jack-adcock-manslaughter-gmc-nhs-crisis-latest-a8189096.html The General Medical Council does not exist to protect doctors. It exists to protect the public. It's jurisprudence over many years has sided towards the public following the Shipman Inquiry. There are a number of defences put forward by this doctors legal team. It's clear no court was convinced by these extenuating circumstances. The GMC sanction guidance is very clear on the the severity of punishment if one is found guilty by a criminal court. It was justified for the General Medical Council to approach the courts for a decision on this case. Unless the criminal case can be overturned or quashed, there is very little chance of improving the GMC sanction. We must remember a Downs syndrome patient died. He was not resuscitated. We have all faced huge work loads over many hours. Some of us had more than 50 patients in one take and we all know the pressures of the NHS. If this doctor found it problematic, she should have raised it with her consultant or management instead of allowing the matter to lead to catastrophe. I believe the General Medical Council has a job to do having neglected patient safety for many years. I should say that at no time have we seen this kind of uproar from the medical profession when patient lives were being compromised. Indeed, not one stood up for R v General Medical Council Ex Parte Toth. Not one was outraged with Mencap's Death by Indifference Report which outlined the discrimination and poor care meted out on disabled people by the medical profession. It is interesting to see that those who did not ever criticise the General Medical Council while it failed patients are now protesting because their own livelihoods maybe on the line. I've known the medical profession for a long time. None have supported the many whistleblowers crucified by the General Medical Council. None have supported the doctors who committed suicide through their procedures. I will say this, we all became doctors to help maintain patient safety. If this case goes someway to maintaining that, it cannot be a bad thing. I'm not going to criticise the GMC for this specific decision because the reason their jurisprudence is patient centric is because the medical profession has neglected the attacks on their human rights. The Medical Act now trumps the Human Rights Act. The fault for this lies with a medical profession too obsessed with their own lives to see their basic rights eroded. If they are in trouble today, they only have themselves to blame. They created the GMC we have today. They should look to themselves to discover where they went wrong. After 20 years of jurisprudence development, the GMC with its civil standard on misconduct armed with case law giving them powers to investigate anything can and will do whatever they wish. It is too late to cry about a system of prosecution that is now set in stone. Once in trapped in the Medical Act, no doctor can challenge the GMC until the final outcome. By then it's too late for any fledgling career or a challenge. These principles were set down in R v General Medical Council Ex Parte Pal. The good thing about this case though is that any patient or relative can use it to trigger Stream 1 to prosecute their doctor. Doctors did not object to this case law despite being warned of its long ranging implications. Now, the law affects the entire medical profession and is entrenched. So Congratulations GMC, you finally made it to upholding the rights of patient kind. You also managed to delete all basic human rights for doctors while they were asleep. Regards Dr Rita Pal NHS Whistleblower Pal v General Medical Council 2005