Professionals Against Child Abuse

Children are the most vulnerable members of society. Sometimes the very people who are expected to protect them place them at risk. It is then that professionals who work with children have a duty to protect them. PACA believes that vulnerable children need dedicated paediatricians, nurses, social workers, teachers and the law to protect them. PACA was formed in response to high profile cases against paediatricians at the General Medical Council at which it became clear that the present regulatory systems did not protect children and were open to abuse by those who sought to discredit professionals who stood up publicly for children's rights. PACA advocates for children's rights by campaigning for regulatory organisations to be trained in child protection, for the interests of the child to be paramount, and for professionals who stand up for children to receive fair treatment.

Article from The Sentinel

Writer: Baronness Golding

It was I as the former MP for Newcastle under Lyme, who first asked for an investigation on the use of CNEP as a treatment for desperately ill babies with serious breathing problems. I did this following evidence shown to me by Mr and Mrs Henshall which was, for the main part, not directly related to the North Staffordshire Hospital. Since then, I have followed closely media reports of the various actions being taken against paediatricians, especially Dr Southall. I have often looked in disbelief at the virulent attacks on Dr Southall and have had many unquiet moments about the way I first dealt with Mr and Mrs Henshall’s concerns and whether I could have dealt with them in another way. This latest action by the General Medical Council in banning Dr Southall from working leaves all doctors at risk. When the third person in the room at the time spoke against the latest accusation, her independent evidence was not accepted by the GMC investigators. Where does that leave doctors’ protection against malicious patients?

Mike Wolfe’s recent column in The Sentinel on the evidence before the General Medical Council was ill informed and unbalanced, and follows the usual low standard of reporting on the case against Dr Southall.

I disagree totally with my colleague Paul Farrelly MP’s assertion that the GMC got its judgments absolutely right in banning Dr Southall from working. I have to say to him that listening to hospital gossip is not the best way to judge anyone. All doctors have their critics, some more vocal than others.

Have Dr Southall’s critics ever seen babies struggling for each breath? Have they ever looked into the face of a policewoman as she brings yet another small, unkempt and dead baby into the accident unit? Have they ever seen a mother half smother a baby and then cry out for help that the child has stopped breathing? Have they ever seen the strain on the faces of dedicated people as they struggle to bring sanity to the lives of children who have been serially abused? Have they ever listened to the words of denial of adults for the broken limbs or sickness of their children who have been serially abused? Have they ever looked into the eyes of children whose fear is locked inside them? These things I have seen. Dr Southall and other paediatricians will have seen such things many, many times. They will ask, as I have often done - who speaks for the child?

My contribution was to spend year after year as an MP, fighting to get the law changed to let children’s voices be heard in the courts. My battle was won - Dr Southall and others like him can never and should never stop being the voice of the child.

When I first met Dr Southall I was impressed by his commitment to help and protect children. Nothing that has happened since has led me to think I was wrong. Only a person who believed in what he was doing could survive the abuse he and other paediatricians have put up with for so long. I ask the question, why? These doctors hae, over the years, worked in a spotlight where their every moved was liable to be questioned. In whose interest? At what cost? The medical world should never stand still. Adults’ voices can always be heard, but who should speak for the child?

Mr Farrelly has said that “sorry” and “apologise” appear not to be in Dr Southall’s personal dictionary. I hope they are, because I wish to apologise to him and say how sorry I am if my initial concern has given fuel o what can only be described as a witch hunt, aided and abetted by some professional people who surely should know better.

Baroness Golding

Published in Sentinel, 20 December 2007

As A junior doctor in 1998, and a person who has worked at North Staffordshire NHS Trust, and also an established whistleblower regarding the sub-standard care of acutely ill people at the trust, I have no reason to support the old boys’ network. But I would simply like to say that Professor David Southall was always well regarded by his patients and colleagues. Relatives who had met him and his colleagues would also speak highly of him. A patient relative once told me how kind he had been to her family. It was this description of overt kindness that struck me and the lady’s testimony has remained with me. Although I have never met Professor Southall, I have followed the last 10 years in depth, and independently came to the conclusion that he is a good doctor, who has been cut in his prime by a minority group. He has also survived the last 10 years due to his own strength of character. I know a number of people who have been subjected to harassment by the same group, and not tolerated the abuse at all. It seems that doctors no longer have the same rights as average citizens. Having had dealings with the campaign group against Dr Southall, I found that their concerns have not been based on sound evidence. Those who know the GMC through the Shipman Inquiry and the Public Policy Institute will know that the GMC has flawed systems. The GMC decision means that child protection is at considerable risk and no doctor can rely on the testimony of a third party or chaperone. None of the complaints against him have been made by those unrelated to this minority group. There are many families in Stoke-on-Trent who are brave people. There are many relatives to have suffered. This group does not consist of brave parents. Mike Wolfe is ill-informed on the workings of child protection and I invite him to familiarise himself with the documentation before putting pen to paper.??I hope Professor Southall is successful in his appeal.

DR RITA PAL

West Midlands

Letter written in response to Private Eye article in edition 1120, (21-12-07 - 11-1-08)

The Eye, regrettably, did not publish this letter.

23 Dec 07

Dear Lord Gnome

In its 40 year history, Private Eye has never evinced any particular knowledge of, nor interest in, children: and perhaps that is why you have allowed yourself to print, in your esteemed organ, so totally wrong an article as appears in Medicine Balls, Eye 1120.

Regrettably, the Chief Executive of the General Medical Council, whom you quote verbatim, appears to be just as ill informed about child protection work as was the remarkably under powered GMC panel which judged Professor Southall. It would be more in the tradition of the Eye if you had taken the time to query this voice of authority, rather than swallowing his inaccurate message whole, and publicising it with no apparent analysis.

As a paediatrician, I can choose a path where I am quite unlikely to face criticism: care for children with any condition under the sun, but keep well away from child abuse. Alternatively, I can take child abuse seriously. This I should do: for 75 children (or more) die each year as a result of abuse or neglect, by their families, in the UK. Which means that there are plenty of other children suffering as a result of abuse or neglect, by their families. But if I do take child abuse seriously, then I am extremely likely to be complained about.

There have been no enquiries into my professional work – except as a result of complaints from parents aggrieved because I raised the possibility of abuse concerning their children. And my experience mirrors that of other paediatricians.

If we reach the stage that paediatricians choose to do the other work (which also needs doing) but avoid child protection work because of the effect on themselves and their families, then the very many children suffering abuse and neglect will be even less well protected than they are now.

It is unfortunate that your organ has chosen a line which - against your best traditions – means that on this occasion you are not supporting the underdog. Quite the reverse. You are supporting the forces which would have us believe that child abuse is quite uncommon – and, in particular, it does not occur in ‘nice’ families. I’m disappointed that your standards have slipped in this way.

I recommend that you read the ‘Open letter to the General Medical Council’ in the British Medical Journal of 15 Dec 07: if you do so, you will be better informed. And possibly your organ will be better informed also.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Ehrhardt

Letter to The Guardian newspaper -Wednesday December 5, 2007

We are extremely concerned at the direction taken by child protection in this country. This concern is made more acute following yesterday’s decision at the GMC to strike David Southall’s name from the medical register. There is a determined campaign to deny the existence and reality of child abuse in all its forms, led by a small group, aided and abetted by some journalists and politicians. This group targets prominent professionals in the field, especially paediatricians. Unable to respond publicly, there is no counterbalancing voice for the cause of abused children, so the media presents a completely one-sided picture.

In recent years, numerous competent, sincere and committed paediatricians have suffered at the hands of this lobby, both from complaints to employing bodies, but more seriously to the General Medical Council. The GMC overreacted in the case of Roy Meadow, where their decision to erase him from the medical register was reversed on appeal. We have also denounced the GMC’s 2004 decision about David Southall (”GMC Fails Child Protection”, Pediatrics 2007).
The recent decision in David Southall’s case (Controversial paediatrician reprimanded again, November 28) further shows their lack of understanding of child protection practice. The GMC has failed to understand the dilemmas faced by paediatricians when the circumstances around a child’s death raise concerns of child abuse and the emotional conflict it generates when this diagnosis needs to be discussed with bereaved parents, devastated by the loss of their child.
The GMC’s recent finding discounted the testimony of David Southall and the accompanying senior social worker. This means that no doctor can rely on an independent professional witness who testifies that they acted appropriately and professionally in a consultation. Given the sensitivity around discussing possible life-threatening abuse, paediatricians appear to have no defence against complaints from aggrieved parents who may have abused their children. This will mean many more paediatricians will avoid engagement in this work. The decision is thus not only a major injustice to Professor Southall, but also to vulnerable children.
The GMC ignores the law: “The well-being of innumerable children up and down the land depends crucially on doctors and social workers concerned with their safety being subjected by the law to but a single duty: that of safeguarding the child’s own welfare.” Paediatricians and social workers in this field must be supported rather than vilified in their efforts to protect children. The GMC decision inhibits doctors from acting within a multi-agency team to protect children.
John Bridson, Nigel Speight, Margaret Crawford, Malcolm Coulthard, Loretta Davis-Reynolds, Charles Essex, Frank Hind, Sherin Jackson, Nadeem Moghal, Peter Morrell, Umesh Prabhu, Tabitha Randell and 26 others

Professionals Against Child Abuse

In an interview during Saturday’s edition of the Today programme on Radio 4 (8th December 2007), Mr. Finlay Scott, Chief Executive of the General Medical Council, gave out false information about the number of doctors who have been brought before the GMC in connection with child protection cases.

Mr Scott told the interviewer, John Humphrys, that PACA had ”unfortunately created the impression that the GMC unfairly persecutes paediatricians involved in child protection work and that’s simply not borne out by the facts”.

He added: “Since I think 2004, during which time we’ve probably had five or six hundred cases before Fitness to Practise panels, only two could reasonably be said to have had any connection with child protection work.”

This is not true. PACA knows of at least five doctors who have been brought before the GMC since 2004 on charges relating to their actions in child protection cases. These are Professors Meadow and Southall and Drs Lazaro, Spender and Paterson. PACA challenges Mr Scott to issue a statement disclosing the true figure. Mr Scott also knows that three of these 5 cases involve world leaders in child protection and that through the high profile media activities that accompanied the fitness to practice hearings that most paediatricians who have admired and been led by these doctors will have been severely discouraged and worried by the very fact that they reached full hearings let alone by the erasure from the register that followed for Professors Meadow and Southall

It is also disingenuous of Mr Scott to create the impression that paediatricians’ concerns are based solely on the number of complaints that have reached the panel stage. He knows full well that it was the GMC’s decision not only to bring the recently heard charges against David Southall but to produce such a perverse finding with draconian sanctions that has undermined the confidence of doctors working in child protection.

Child-protection work invariably means raising uncomfortable suspicions about parents. Some of these suspicions will prove well founded, some will not. To ensure doctors will not hesitate to raise such concerns, providing they have raised them in good faith they are immune to legal action taken by aggrieved parents. The GMC has unilaterally rendered this immunity meaningless by replacing the threat of legal action with the even greater threat of the loss of livelihood.

Released: 4th December 2007

Writer: Dr Patricia Hamilton, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

Published at: RCPCH
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) is saddened and disappointed to learn of this judgment. David Southall has made a major contribution to child health both nationally and internationally and has been a strong advocate for children during a distinguished career.

Sadly there are circumstances where parents may have harmed their children, and in these situations health professionals have a statutory duty to act on their concerns and look after the best interests of the child. This is clearly defined in the Government’s document ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’.

We are very concerned that paediatricians and social workers will be deterred from undertaking child protection work, and that children and young people may come to harm.

Dr Patricia Hamilton, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

Released: 4th December 2007

Writer: Dr Evan Harris MP

Dr Evan Harris MP, who has been supporting Dr Southall (and before him Prof Roy Meadow) against a campaign of vilification by campaign groups, and defending paediatricians who perform child protection work, said:

“In the light of the GMC finding that Dr Southall accused a grieving mother (Mrs M) of murdering her son (M1) during an interview on 27th April 1998 undertaken as part of child care proceedings, I am not surprised that the GMC has decided that it was Serious Professional Misconduct and has struck him off.”

“To erase Dr Southall from the Medical Register is still disproportionate to the alleged offence but the real problem here is how the GMC could possibly have found that that charge was proved beyond reasonable doubt when it was the word of two experienced professionals that it had not happened against that of a woman who clearly had antipathy towards Dr Southall.”

“This verdict is a serious miscarriage of justice and has major implications for the security of paediatricians doing vital and difficult child protection work, and who now cannot rely on the presence of a chaperone or 3rd party witness to defend themselves against potentially false or malicious charges, which occur in abundance in this fraught area.”

“The planned reduction of the burden of proof to the civil standard (balance of probabilities) would make matters even worse”
“The interests of children who are at risk requires paediatricians to be willing to come forward and the failure of the Government and the authorities to stem the campaign against child protection paediatricians is a scandal in itself which has real implications for child welfare.”

Dr Evan Harris MP

Released: 4/12/2007

Dr Southall has been a courageous defender of abused children and it is his dedication to that cause that has made him a high-profile target for a group of activists working on behalf of parents accused of child abuse.

Today’s decision, a victory for this group, is utterly perverse and we condemn it unreservedly, not only because we believe it represents a grotesque miscarriage of justice but also because it sends out a simple message to any doctor so much as thinking about engaging in child protection: ‘Don’t bother. It isn’t worth it; you will lose your livelihood.’ I needn’t spell out where that leaves abused children.

Dr Southall was found guilty of accusing a mother of murder nine years ago. He says he did not and it was up to the GMC to prove that he did. They proved no such thing. Instead, they chose to believe the uncorroborated evidence of a naturally aggrieved mother and to reject Dr Southall’s version of events, even though it was endorsed by the evidence of the senior social worker who had sat through the interview in question.

Paediatricians are disgusted and disillusioned and if the government doesn’t sit up and take notice of what is going on in this country I fear for the future of child protection

Professionals Against Child Abuse (PACA)