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Part 4 – Investigating Committee Hearing

Following on from my previous  blogs which can be read here, here, here, here and here regarding my experience of a General Dental Council case, I received slightly short of one year following my initial GDC letter, a list of charges related to my GDC complaint and the referral to the Investigation Committee

For colleagues who are interested in the process and how this works, the Investigation Committee in my case consisted of one dentist, one hygienist and a layperson that chaired the panel. The Investigation Committee sat in private to consider submissions from myself, the patient and the case notes and evidence available from myself and other practitioners. During this process and following receipt of the Investigation Committee letter, there is a list of charges that have been drawn up by a caseworker for the General Dental Council. In my case this related to points from the expert witness’s report and the patient’s complaint.

It’s fair to say that there were inaccuracies in the charge sheet, which in fact were dismissed by the Investigation Committee out of hand, but on a more sinister note, there were three charges stating that my conduct had been misleading, deliberately misleading and dishonest. On reading this in October 2014 I was utterly heartbroken. For it to be suggested that I had deliberately mislead someone or been dishonest in my care was devastating and at this stage the defence union suggested to me that this case would go to Fitness to Practice Hearing based on those charges.

Following on from this the process of rebutting the charges and compiling evidence to do so is undertaken in a short period of time on a GDC deadline. With the expert help from the MDDUS Solicitor and Dental Advisor, I was able to rebut every single charge and provide evidence for such including four Consultant letters from people who had been involved in the case directly or indirectly. I was able to utterly refute the charges of being misleading, deliberately misleading and dishonest and submit my material to the Investigation Committee for consideration.

My response is then sent to the patient to allow them to respond, following which the patient’s response to my response is sent to me allowing me to respond to the patient’s response to my response (did you get that?!) At that stage responses are closed and the material goes before the Investigation Committee. I am led to believe that the Investigation Committee may consider a significant number of cases on a single day sitting – not a great deal of time to consider a bundle of notes which was quite extensive in my case if that is indeed the case.

In my initial letter from the General Dental Council I was told that I would hear the outcome of the Investigation Committee Hearing within a fortnight. In my case it was 8^th January when I received the letter (some weeks later) which said that the GDC had closed the case with two items of advice for me including: ensuring all possible treatment options are discussed and noted in relation to implant treatments and to ensure that any complications were fully explained to patients following treatment. For my piece, I would suggest that both of those had been carried out but perhaps not logged as the GDC would have expected. In any event, they were two very small points in a larger case where everything else was dismissed. Most notably, the charges of misleading, deliberately misleading and dishonest had been identified by the Investigation Committee as charges where they could not find any reason why they had been brought in the first place. It staggered me that charges of such gravity and severity can be entered into a Registrant’s charge sheet only to be put in front of an Investigation Committee who say they shouldn’t have been there in the first place. That caused me extreme distress and distress for my family, not only on seeing the charges but on seeing my reaction to the charges and how utterly heartbroken I was. This is something which needs to be addressed in the whole scheme of GDC investigations. Charges cannot be brought against individual clinicians unless they are well founded and well considered clinically. To accuse an ethical, compassionate and caring clinician with an unblemished history of acting in a misleading, deliberately misleading and dishonest fashion is a serious charge indeed and this should not be taken lightly by anybody.

It is essential that we all use the opportunity to get our views across to Government. Please submit your responses to the Health Select Committee Accountability Hearing by 19^th February here.

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