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Secret’s Out : An NHS Exposed Exclusive
Announced on the 20th February 2007, the review revolves around approximately 4500 “special case files”, which, the Attorney General said, may not have been disclosed in court when Professor Southall was a prosecution witness. However, a source close to the review told NHS Exposed, “The special case files referred to were administrative folders set up in the Department of Paediatric Clinical Physiology at the Royal Brompton Hospital / National Heart and Lung Institute in the mid 1980s, each folder being generated by any patient referred for an overnight recording of cardio-respiratory measurements, such as breathing movements, heart rate and rhythm, and oxygen levels. These recordings, also known as sleep studies, were performed on babies and children referred from numerous hospitals around the country and abroad for a variety of sleep related breathing disorders, including episodes of stopping breathing or obstructed breathing.” They went on to say, “Each recording would involve use of reel-to-reel magnetic tape recordings 1980s-1990), a video tape (1990-2004) or DVD (2004 onwards) and these were too bulky to be kept within the medical records.” “Accompanying each overnight recording were documents that would not be incorporated within the medical records, but would be kept in close proximity to the tape recording in the Department of Paediatric Clinical Physiology at the Brompton Hospital (to 1992) and in the Academic Department of Paediatrics, University Hospital of North Staffordshire (1992 onwards). These would include invitations to the parent for admission for the sleep study on their child, the event diary kept by the parent and/or nursing staff during the recording, a questionnaire administered to parents about the child’s sleep behaviour and other documentation relevant to the interpretation of the recording. These ‘special case’ files were departmental records accessible to all within the department performing this particular investigation, including secretaries, nurses, doctors, research fellows and technicians. The folders were akin to the documents that would be kept by a department performing any other specialist investigations in a hospital, where specimens, recordings and print-outs, x-ray films, and so on would not be able to be kept within the medical records. These were not Professor Southall’s personal records, but departmental records.” NHS Exposed understands that these so-called “special case files” usually included a copy of the letter from a clinician in another hospital referring the child for investigation, and copies of the results of the overnight physiological recording the original letters and results being filed in the patients’ main medical records. Additional documentation was kept in a special case file when it was considered inappropriate to file such documentation within the main medical record. This would include the minutes of child protection case conferences and the staff’s own medico-legal reports for Social Services, as well as the reports of other medical experts. According to our source, less than 5% of the files under review contain any information relating to child protection matters. It is not standard NHS practice to file any of these kinds of documents within the patient’s main medical records, nor, we understand, was there ever any intention for original medical records to be kept in such files, as this would be considered inappropriate medical practice. Professor Southall has been the subject of an incredible number of investigations into his personal and professional conduct for almost 10 years. His research, clinical and child protection work has been subjected to intense scrutiny by his own Hospital Trust, the West Midlands Regional Health Authority (in the now discredited Griffiths Inquiry), the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, various police forces, the General Medical Council, numerous research funding organisations and scientific journals that have supported or published his work. Yet, despite this unprecedented level of inquiry into the work of a single medical practitioner, the findings against Professor Southall are astonishingly sparse. On just one point amongst the many allegations levelled against him has he ever been found guilty of any wrongdoing, and even on that solitary occasion the General Medical Council did not find his alleged transgression to be sufficiently serious as to warrant his removal from the medical register Why, then, do persistent and diverse allegations of misconduct continue to surround Professor Southall, no matter how many times he is exonerated? And where do these allegations come from? On the 8th April 2007, the Sunday Express featured an article in which Professor Southall claimed to have become the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by a small group of people who were bitterly opposed to his diagnoses of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, a condition in which mothers try to harm their children to seek attention. Certainly, a small but vocal anti-Southall pressure group has been actively campaigning against the Professor for some time, and it may have been this group to which he referred in the Sunday Express. Ms Penny Mellor, a convicted felon, self-styled “child advocate” and prominent member of this group admitted to Hospital Doctor that, by mid-2006, she had personally made no less than 30 complaints to the GMC against Professor Southall alone, together with a swathe of similar complaints to the RCPCH, the Central Council for Nursing, social services, the police, the NHS Executive, the Chief Medical Officer, the Health Minister and the Prime Minister. She has also made, or assisted other members of the pressure group to make, complaints against at least 22 doctors and other professionals, all of whom had spoken up for or otherwise supported the beleaguered Professor- or, at least, had challenged Ms Mellor’s view of him. Indeed, Ms Mellor has made just such a complaint to the GMC against the editor of this website after we questioned the scientific basis for her anti-Southall stance, and has even attempted to complain about the editor’s blog, alleging that it undermined her integrity and credibility with government and other agencies as a high profile campaigner against Professor Southall. Unfortunately, just as her complaint to the GMC was factually inaccurate to the point of absurdity, so she failed to address her complaint about the editor’s blog to the appropriate company – or even the appropriate kind of company. This failure to grasp basic concepts may well go some way towards explaining why the vast majority of the complaints she has made or instigated against Professor Southall have been an exercise in futility. Had Ms Mellor brought so many failed complaints before the civil courts, Professor Southall would have long ago been entitled to ask the Attorney General’s office to consider making an application to have her declared a vexatious litigant. However, the GMC does not have any mechanism for identifying and handling industriously repetitive complainants, even though Mr Paul Philip, head of the GMC’s Fitness to Practise Directorate, said, in the Hospital Doctor article mentioned above, “'The whole situation relating to serial and vexatious complaints is a difficult one,” and added that the GMC was introducing a new IT system that year (2006) which would make it easier to flag and identify patterns. Despite this litany of failures, however, Ms Mellor remains popular with the mainstream media, and is always ready to raise her public profile with a suitably emotive, persuasive quote. On the subject of the Attorney General’s review of the so-called “secret files”, for example, Ms Mellor said, in the Daily Mail, “This review is what we've been fighting for ten years. Some of these files may relate to parents who went to prison, lost their children and have been branded child abusers and child murderers. They want the truth to come out, they want people to know they are not guilty.” No doubt they do, whether they are innocent or not. It is hard to see how this could be established from the content of not-at-all-secret departmental records, though. Be that as it may, Ms Mellor is, indisputably, an expert at getting her anti-Southall point of view into the mainstream media, to the extent that she has almost single-handedly created and maintained the Southall story. In this she has been ably assisted by her long-time associate, Mr Brian Morgan. Mr Morgan, a journalist and vice-chairman of the Cardiff and South East Wales NUJ, is always ready to leap to Ms Mellor’s aid when awkward questions loom, and is frequently to be found posting messages in support of Ms Mellor on internet discussion forums. Ms Mellor is capable of manipulating the media, as indicated by her own postings on an internet discussion forum. She has been shown to expresse her delight at ensuring that the term “lab rat” was the so-called sound bite used to describe Professor Southall’s work, as she had intended it to be. As is often the case when easily obtainable sound bites are on offer, the excessive publicity surrounding Ms Mellor’s complaints against Professor Southall has attracted interest from various public figures, including Mr John Hemming MP. Mr Hemming, who is perhaps most famous for his string of extramarital affairs, has been quick to promote Ms Mellor’s cause, but, like Ms Mellor and Mr Morgan, has failed to answer questions on the scientific basis of her claims to our satisfaction. Along with photo opportunities, however, the storm of publicity surrounding Professor Southall may have brought more tangible benefits to some individuals. Perhaps encouraged by the media frenzy, civil litigation on matters relating to Professor Southall is now far from uncommon. Many of these cases have attracted legal aid funding, and rumour has it that, for this reason, they have become highly sought after in some legal circles. Clearly, the more publicity the Southall controversy attracts, and the longer it goes on for, the wealthier some people will become. For them, the efforts of the pressure group’s publicity machine must be manna from heaven – no amount of advertising could ever hope to have the reach and impact of a reported comment from a high profile campaigner. Of course, when highly technical issues are in dispute, it is not only lawyers who stand to benefit. Expert witnesses are often required, and their services do not come cheap. For example, Professor Tim David, one of Britain’s leading paediatricians and an expert in child protection issues, has been instructed as an expert witness in matters both surrounding and directly related to Professor Southall on a number of occasions. Perha[s surprisingly, Professor David’s position appears to have been somewhat unfortunate, in that he acted as an expert witness in the case of Sally Clarke, and then again when Professor Southall raised a potential concern about the safety of her remaining child in Mr Clarke’s care, and yet again in her husband’s complaint to the GMC against Professor Southall. In doing so, he effectively disagreed with Professor Southall’s view in one matter, and was then, apparently, expected to provide an independent and unbiased view of the Professor’s work on this point in the other. That this could, potentially, have been regarded as a conflict of interest and was, in any event, a very difficult situation to impose upon Professor David, does not seem to have occurred to the GMC. Although, according to GMC v BBC (1998) 1 WLR 1573 (CA), the GMC is not a court of law, it is still a public body, owing its very existence to the Medical Act 1983. As a creature of statute, it is bound to follow the terms of the Human Rights Act 1998, which enacts into English law the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 6 of the Convention sets out the Right to a Fair Trial, and R v GMC, ex parte Toth [2000] 1 WLR 2209 (QBD) clearly shows that the GMC is obliged to follow this requirement with respect to medical practitioners, at least. Later this year, the GMC will reconvene a currently adjourned hearing to consider yet more allegations against Professor Southall. Facing a blizzard of carefully orchestrated adverse publicity, an expert witness whose interests are at least potentially conflicting and the prospect of being the Respondent of choice for any lawyer with an eye on their legal aid earnings, Professor Southall will once again attempt to counter the allegations against him. How could this preposterous situation ever be fair? The inevitable media frenzy created first by the review of so-called “secret files” and then by the resumption of the hearing itself will no doubt be littered with suitably heart-rending, but evidence-bereft and cynically headline-friendly comments from the anti-Southall brigade. It seems unlikely that the GMC’s panellists would not be influenced by the media coverage to some degree, and even if they were not, public opinion as a whole is always easily swayed by emotive but otherwise insubstantial reportage. The temptation for the GMC to make a finding that would be popular, rather than accurate, would be very great indeed, particularly for a body so concerned with its public image as the GMC has shown itself to be. If justice is to be both done and seen to be done in this controversial matter, two things need to happen as a matter of urgency. Firstly, the media must learn to question the credentials and evidential basis of those who set themselves up as high profile pressure groups, and be very wary of publishing quotes or interviews from groups or individuals who cannot adequately substantiate their claims. Secondly, the GMC must immediately implement a means of controlling repeat complainers, particularly where previous complaints have gone nowhere. Only when the twin shrouds of hysterical rhetoric based on unsound scientific assumptions and massively repetitive but baseless complaints have been lifted can we hope for the truth to finally come out. Until then, the entire field of British paediatrics will remain under a cloud of suspicion, to the long-term detriment of the children both Professor Southall and Ms Mellor’s band of agitators claim to seek to protect.
These inquiries have been alongside numerous complaints (resulting in other minor inquiries) made by the same group of individuals to: Research ethics committees who have passed research projects Universities who have supported research Editors of journals in which papers have been published Conference organisers Various police authorities Politicians *** Civil servants Ministers in HM Government Media organisations *** Alongside the complaints against Professor Roy Meadow, this resulted in MPs of all political parties denying aspects of child abuse in the Houses of Parliament (2003-2004) and comparing Professor Southall to Josef Mengele (John Hemmings MP, 2006). Related Links Inquiries into "special files" "Secret Records" allegation under investigation Hospital May Sue MP over file row Southall Faces Further Hearing Unbelievable Heaviness of Knowing Southall to be Legally Scrutinised
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The
so-called “secret files” at the centre of the Attorney General’s
review of criminal cases in which paediatrician Professor David Southall
acted as an expert witness amount to little more than routine departmental
records, NHS Exposed has learned.