MANCHESTER—A doctor who received a suspended jail sentence over the death of a 6-year-old boy can return to unrestricted practice, a medical tribunal has ruled.

Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba returned to work last November for the first time in 5 years after a raft of conditions were imposed on her registration.

In November 2015 a jury convicted her of gross negligence manslaughter in her treatment of Jack Adcock, who developed sepsis and died of cardiac arrest at Leicester Royal Infirmary in February 2011.

A month later she was sentenced to 2 years in jail, suspended for the same period.

Conditions ‘Not in the Public Interest’

On Friday, she was informed at a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing there were no longer any outstanding concerns over her clinical practice, and it was not in the public interest to maintain the conditions.

Among her failures in Jack’s treatment were making an incorrect diagnosis of gastroenteritis on initial examination of the youngster – who had Down’s syndrome and a heart condition – and not acting on a clinical reading which “ought to have been a clear indicator”.

The doctor was “on the cusp” of becoming a consultant before the incident, as a specialist registrar.

Dr Bawa-Garba was barred from practice for 12 months before the General Medical Council (GMC) took the case to the High Court to appeal against the sanction, saying it was “not sufficient”, and Dr Bawa-Garba was struck off in January 2018.

Later, the Court of Appeal ruled her name should be restored to the medical register and her case sent back to the MPTS.

Read the full article here.

DAUK’s Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden featured in Medscape’s Covid-19 roundup on 9th February 2021:

NHS ‘Nothing Special’ 

“There is nothing special about the NHS, neither during this pandemic, nor at any other time.”

Those words come from an Institute Of Economic Affairs report called ‘Viral Myths: Why we risk learning the wrong lessons from the pandemic’.

The document from the think-tank’s Dr Kristian Niemietz argues that the pandemic “has given rise to the phenomenon of ‘Coronfirmation Bias’: the tendency to interpret the pandemic as a ‘vindication’ of one’s own world view”. 

Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, president of Doctors’ Association UK tweeted: “I am so upset by this. We have worked ourselves into the ground to save lives. We have lost hundreds of colleagues. How dare you. How dare you.”

The whole of England is going into a tightened national lockdown due to the rapid spread of the new variant of coronavirus.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the announcement in a TV address at 8pm rather than a news conference.  “The Government is once again instructing you to stay at home,” he said after giving some background to the decision. 

“In England alone, the number of COVID patients in hospitals has increased by nearly a third in the last week to almost 27,000, and that number is 40% higher than the first peak in April. 

“On 29 December, more than 80,000 people tested positive for COVID across the UK, a new record. The number of deaths is up by 20% over the last week.”

Clinically extremely vulnerable people are advised to begin shielding again.

Schools and colleges move to remote learning and this summer’s exams are cancelled.

Schools are not unsafe, Mr Johnson said: “The problem is that schools may nonetheless act as vectors for transmission causing the virus to spread between households.” 

Leaving home is only permitted for essential reasons but outdoor exercise is still allowed.

The PM struck a positive note on vaccination: “By the middle of February, if things go well, and with a fair wind in our sails, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the four top priority groups, identified by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.”

Mr Johnson said the rules should be followed from now and will become law on Wednesday morning and Parliament is being recalled later the same day.

“You must once again stay at home, protect the NHS, and save lives,” he concluded. 

Reaction 

Reacting via Twitter, Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, president of Doctors Association UK, said: “I have no doubt this will have come as a blow to so many. But we are at breaking point on the front line. The NHS could be overwhelmed in 21 days without taking some difficult decisions.”

Read the full article here: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/943524

Medscape UK’s latest online survey of more than 1000 doctors highlights how working through COVID-19 has impacted their mental health and personal lives.

The number of doctors reporting burnout increased to 37% this year from 22% when we last asked in 2018.

“This latest survey absolutely aligns with what the Doctors’ Association UK is hearing from members,” commented Dr Natalie Ashburner, wellbeing lead for the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK).

“NHS staff were already suffering from high rates of burnout and mental illness in the context of a decade of chronic underfunding of services, lack of staff, and erosion of pay and working conditions.”

Danger Pay 

More than half of doctors thought overtime or danger pay would be appropriate. Instead, most doctors in England got a 2.8% pay rise said to be in recognition of frontline work, but described as “a metaphorical slap in the face” by the British Medical Association.

As well as burnout, nearly 1 in 5 doctors said they were clinically depressed.

“COVID-19 has drastically exacerbated these pre-existing issues and the result is that dedicated, highly skilled staff have been pushed to the point at which they are unable to cope any longer,” Dr Ashburner said.

View the entire article here: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/940129

The article reports that member polling by Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) found 70% of more than 1000 frontline staff did not know when they’d receive the jab.

DAUK has also written to England’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock over concerns that PPE guidance has not been updated to match the increased transmissibility of the new virus variant.

DAUK’s Dr Zainab Najim:

“Without a universal policy to vaccinate frontline patient-facing staff as a priority, and no review of current PPE guidance, we could be facing avoidable staff sickness and absence over the already difficult winter months. We are also concerned that, without escalating the current PPE guidelines, staff themselves will be at risk of not only contracting the virus but passing it onto the vulnerable patient population.”

The article can be found here (registration required).

However, Mark Lucraft QC wrote:

“Coroners are independent judges. They make their judicial decisions independently on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the law and they exercise their judicial duty and discretion in relation to any death, including that of a healthcare worker, which is reported to them.”

Paul Daniels, a solicitor at Keystone Law, advised that “Employers have a legal duty of care under the Control of Substances Hazardous Health 2002 (COSHH) to assess and reduce the risks from exposure to biological hazards. A breach of that duty, like failing to provide sufficient gowns or masks, would be unlawful.”

Even so there is a sense that people don’t want to stick their heads above the parapet in case it has damaging personal consequences for them. The Doctors’ Association UK has said that some GPs have been told by local CCGs not to talk to the press and to avoid posting on social media about any shortages.

It continued: “The absence of high-quality evidence for this should not be interpreted as the absence of risk. The clinical reality is that chest compressions produce excretions from a patient’s nose and mouth. As such, irrespective of whether this is via aerosol or droplet or both, this poses a demonstrable risk to health care professionals.”

That stance was backed by Doctors’ Association UK. Chair Dr Rinesh Parmar said: “We unreservedly support the Resuscitation Council UK and share their concerns that CPR should be deemed as an aerosol generating procedure.”