GP applies to have name removed from GMC register (From Gazette & Herald)

Dr Elizabeth Bradley applies to have name removed from GMC register

9:46am Monday 4th March 2013 in News By Mike Laycock, Chief reporter

A GP who was strongly criticised over her treatment of a North Yorkshire cancer patient has applied to have her name removed from the General Medical Council’s (GMC) Register.

But the council says its case examiners have refused Dr Elizabeth Bradley’s application because of “unresolved concerns regarding her fitness to practise”.

It says its investigation will continue accordingly, and it has invited the doctor to undergo an extensive assessment of her performance, which takes roughly six months to complete and has recently got under way.

Doctors who no longer wish to practise medicine can apply to the GMC to have their names removed from the register – known as “voluntary erasure from the register.”

The developments come four months after the doctor, formerly of Terrington Surgery near Malton, was suspended by the GMC’s “interim orders panel.”

Dr Bradley also decided last autumn to retire from general practice and leave the surgery, only weeks before a Primary Care Trust panel was due to consider complaints against her and decide on her future.

The Press reported earlier last year how Dr Bradley had wrongly diagnosed patient Christine Hutchinson, of Westow, near Malton, as suffering from fibromyalgia.

Her spine was later found to have collapsed and she was diagnosed as suffering from the cancer myeloma.

The Health Service Ombudsman said the doctor’s standard of care for her fell so far short of the applicable standard as to amount to “service failure”.

He later said he had concerns about other patients’ safety because the GP had failed to produce an adequate action plan to address the serious failings.

Mrs Hutchinson told The Press she had been unhappy at the possibility of Dr Bradley being able to have her name removed from the register and had objected to the GMC about her application.

“I want her in front of a panel to answer to the complaints,” she said, adding that she was pleased the application had been refused.

The GMC told The Press it could not comment on individual cases.

Dr Bradley was unavailable for comment.