Chief science advisor mounts legal challenge
Judicial review examining legality of medical council decision to investigate professor
ONE of Northern Ireland’s top doctors has mounted a High Court bid to stop a probe into “serious criticisms” of his work.
Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Ian Young — who has played a key role in the pandemic response — is trying to prevent the General Medical Council from investigating allegations, including that he misled a coroner examining the death of a child in a Belfast hospital in 1996.
ONE of Northern Ireland’s top doctors — who has played a key role in the pandemic response — has mounted a High Court bid to stop an official probe into “serious criticisms” of his work.
Professor Ian Young, the chief scientific adviser, is trying to prevent the General Medical Council (GMC) from investigating a series of allegations, including that he misled a coroner examining the death of a child at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children in 1996.
Claire Roberts was nine when she died from hyponatraemia caused by fluid mismanagement. She was one of five children whose deaths were examined by a public inquiry which blasted the health service for its culture of secrecy and described her death as preventable.
The inquiry report accused Prof Young, who carried out an independent review of her treatment for the Belfast Trust, of “misleading” the coroner at an inquest into her death in 2006.
The inquiry chair also found that Prof Young “shifted from his initial independent role… to one of protecting the hospitals and its doctors” and that he did not tell Claire’s parents about failings in her treatment.
During a virtual judicial review at the High Court in London, counsel for Prof Young, a member of the Sage government advisory body, described suggestions that he was involved in a cover up after Claire’s death as “simply illogical”.
He also took the opportunity to apologise to Claire’s parents, Alan and Jennifer, who were watching proceedings from their home in east Belfast.
Robert Kellar QC said: “Prof Young is acutely conscious of the suffering of Mr and Mrs Roberts and their family arising from Claire’s death and the subsequent events, including the lengthy public inquiry. Prof Young is deeply sorry for his actions, in so far as they have inadvertently contributed, or may have inadvertently contributed, to Mr and Mrs Roberts’ distress or their suffering in any way.”
The judicial review is examining the legality of a GMC decision to investigate Prof Young following an earlier decision by the regulatory body that there was no case to answer.
The court was told the GMC began a probe following the publication of the Hyponatraemia Inquiry report, in which “serious criticisms were made of Prof Young’s historic conduct alongside a number of other doctors”.
Mr Kellar QC continued: “In November 2018, the GMC communicated that the information comprised in the inquiry report had been considered by reference to the five-year rule but that the five-year rule would not be waived and the GMC will not be undertaking any further investigations and will be closing the inquiry with no further action.”
Under current legislation, the GMC does not routinely investigate allegations that are more than five-years-old unless it is in the public interest.
The court was told an assistant registrar at the GMC deemed that it was not in the public interest to proceed with a case against Prof Young, referring to the historic nature of the allegations.
However, the original decision was “reversed and substituted” by a different assistant registrar last year, who found that it was “in the public interest” for the allegations against Prof Young to proceed to an investigation.
Mr Kellar argued the original decision that it was not in the public interest to waive the statutory time limit on investigations was “lawful and rational” and that the reversal of that decision was “inconsistent and unreasonable”.
However, Mr Justice Holgate raised concerns that the length of delay in concerns being brought to the GMC may play a part in its decision on whether or not to advance a case.
Addressing Mr Kellar, he said: “I’m struggling a bit with that. It would be arguably wrong to look at the delay, per se, without looking at the context. The reason why action hasn’t been taken before can be highly germane... one could easily imagine a situation, not this case, where there is a real problem for patients or their relations to work out whether there is a cause for concern, let alone complaint, because of the information they’re being given.
“If there is a candour issue in relation to that, that can be highly germane to the approach one takes to the length of delay and effectively what the first registrar was saying is that it was difficult for these matters to be properly appreciated until a very lengthy and detailed inquiry took place.
“If that is what the first registrar is saying, is effectively recognising it took 11 to 13 years because it required investigation, why should the length of delay in isolation have any significance at all?”
Peter Mant, for the GMC, said the body was not “making any findings” about Prof Young at this early stage in proceedings.
Mr Justice Holgate said he will deliver judgment at a later date.
‘He is acutely conscious of the suffering of Mr and Mrs Roberts arising from Claire’s death’