Is Dr Dudley fit for purpose?

I have spoken to a number of doctors about the way in which their cases have been handled by Dr Mark Dudley. What shines through each story is the mix of incompetence and deceipt and complete lack of will to do anything to represent a certain faction of doctors who are MPS members one way or another. Let us reflect of Tushar Bhadra, an Indian surgeon who has been accidentally erased from the register because the GMC did not realise that becuse of his age he no longer had to pay his fees and so they deleted his name from the register last year and now say they cannot find a mechanism on their computer to reverse it. Dr Dudley does little to help Dr Bhadra but has tied him up with Christina Lambert, a barrister, who is being very difficult over the issue of the judicial review promised within time. With anything Dr Dudley touches it's promises and piecrusts, soon broken. Dr Bhadra is waiting to be restored to the register still. Is Dr Dudley really in the pocket of the GMC- it looks as if he is after all Dr Bhadra is at this moment fighting the GMC in an Employment Tribunal which the MPS should be funding but are refusing to. Or is this just favouratism and a hint of superiority and racism on his part after all he went to the ends of the earth in supporting Dr Andrew Wakefield, the white charismatic conman in his failed attempt to use a claim form issued by Radcliffes Le Brasseur in the High Court in order to threaten people of little importance in order to shut them up and prevent the truth about Wakefield and his MMR and Legal Aid scam ever coming out. Thankfully Mr Justice Eady saw sense and exposed the claim form for what it was, no more than a device to threaten and intimidate others with. Dr Dudley has been called to the Bar and I wonder what the Bar Council would think about his deceipt if it ever reached their ears? Then the bigger deceipt when Dr Dudley failed to tell a Dr Colman of her entitlement to representation. I saw this doctor just before I flew out home and wished her well. The story of Dr Colman is a dreadful one and the MPS should be ashamed of themselves to leave doctors like Dr Colman and Dr Bhadra in limbo whilst spending several million on pulling out all stops to defend the indefensible MMR scandal of Dr Wakefield and his disreputable research and then expect the infamous Richard Barr, the solicitor central to all this to give a convincing story to get him aquitted. It is well known that Barr and Wakefield have creamed off several millions of legal aid in order to support a fake theory. So is Dr Dudley the supporter of all this bogus fakery and threats to small fry like the Cambridge Evening News really fit for purpose- perhaps not as he was missing for several weeks recently and had condoned the bogus actions being taken by Wakefield. Deception is the word to remember fellow doctors. Do not join the Medical Deception Society but join the MDDUS, and avoid Radcliffes Le Brasseur as well.

Dr Andrew Wakefield, The MPS and RadcliffesLeBrasseur

As you know Dr Andrew Wakefield, of MMR fame, is the centre of attention in a Professional Conduct hearing at the GMC at the moment. The MPS as ever are in Dr Wakefield's corner. Why wouldn't they be as his defence body? However, who else is in the corner with them? Dr Dudley appears to be. It was him who supported the disatrous attempt by RadcliffesLeBrasseur to issue proceedings for defamation against Brian Deer, the Sunday Times Journalist, and Channel Four. Having issued proceedings RadcliffesLeBrasseur then used the writ as an instrument to force small newspapers, such as the Cambridge Evening News, to back off printing any story about Dr Wakefield. Mr Justice Eady eventually found them out and Andrew Wakefield had to drop his case and RadcliffesLeBrasseur and the MPS had to pay up. The question is has that deterred them from still batting on a sticky wicket for Andrew Wakefield? Perhaps not, for Robert Vallings a partner at RadcliffesLeBrasseur has recently written a letter to his own regulatory body, who are investigating Ralph Shipway, another of RadcliffesLeBrasseur's solicitors, stating that Dr Surendra Kumar will be the first witness to vouch for RadcliffesLeBrasseur. You may ask who is Dr Surendra Kumar apart from being the chairman of BAIPO. He is the chairman of the GMC's own professional conduct panel which is sitting to determine the fate of Dr Andrew Wakefield. If Robert Vallings is correct in his assertion then that suggests that the MPS and RadcliffesLeBrasseur have also managed to get Dr Surendra Kumar in Andrew Wakefield's corner. This panel is compromised.

Dr Mark Dudley and Dr Tushar Bhadra

I was disturbed to discover the story of Dr Tushar Bhadra and way in which he had been treated by the Medical Protection Society. Dr Bhadra is an Indian doctor who relied on the MPS to represent him properly when he was accused of misconduct by the GMC in 1998. The difficulty for Dr Bhadra was that he had successfully claimed against his employer earlier. The employer paid him damages as a result of his being racially abused by his consultant who told him to go home to India amongs other things. After that things were difficult for Dr Bhadra who was obliged to earn his living by locum work. However not very far behind him were his enemies so it seemed as he was subsequently accused of not treating a patient in a casualty unit properly and changing his CV. It appears and Dr Bhadra has always maintained that he did not treat the patient wrongly and is supported in this and he didn't falsify his CV either but the GMC or the former employer may well have done. It seems at the time of the hearing and subsequently the MPS and RadcliffesLeBrasseur didn't represent him properly, behaved as if they disbelieved him which is quite common for them, and allowed him to be tied up in a never ending circle of trying to fulfill the GMC's conditions on his suspended registration for a number of years, which requred him to retrain but on the other hand never being given the chance to retrain. The nub of the matter came to a head over the years and at one point Dr John Hickey former CE of the MPS invited Mrs Bhadra in and tried to persuade her, quite wrongly, to get Dr Bhadra to give up his cause. Eventually Dr Bhadra was supported in his assertions by another solicitor's firm that RadcliffesLeBrasseur had been negligent. Of course they should have settled with him then but Ralph Shipway of RadcliffesLeBrasser visited Dr Bhadra at his house unexpectedly to pour oil on troubled waters. Last year the GMC erased Dr Bhadra almost by default and the MPS should now be representing him to get his registration back. This is where Dr Dudley comes in. He seems to be representing Dr Bhadra with Juliette Mellman-Jones of Berryman Lace Mawer. How effective this will be remains to be seen because now Dr Bhadra has a race relations case against the GMC. Dr Dudley refuses to give him any support in this although I think he should and so do other doctors. The MPS and Dr Dudley in particular do not want to challenge the GMC because for them Dr Bhadra is an embarrassment. Basically they were negligent but when it comes to it if they have been negligent in the handling of a doctor's case with the GMC as they have with Dr Bhadras then they will never do anything to help if as in this case Dr Bhadra is winning against the GMC. What they are really frightened of is the GMC pointing out in a tribunal or court that it is not just the GMC who has been wrong but that the MPS and their solicitors, RadcliffesLeBrasseur, have contributed to this wrong by their inadequate and negligent representation of the doctor. in that way the MPS always walks away from their negligence and their responsibility to put it right. I suggest to you doctors reading this that the MPS is an organisation which is dishonest and will go to any lengths not to honour its commitment to doctors, and this is especially the case if the doctor is from overseas. Dr Dudley is in the forefront of holding the line for the MPS. Do not join the MPS. They will renege on their duty towards you in order to cover up. Join the MDDUS instead and insist that if you are in trouble you will not be represented by RadcliffesLeBrasseur.

Dr Mark Dudley, Head of Medical Services London

Dr Dudley has recently been promoted to Head of Medical Services in the London office. I happened to speak to a doctor who told me they had seen a clutch of letters written by Dr Dudley in which he told a doctor they were not eligible for help when they obviously were. I was surpised, looked in their Memorandum of the Articles of Association and saw that the letters were at variance with what the Articles said. I asked the doctor what had happened. He told me that this other doctor, who was well known, had been defamed on the internet and elsewhere constantly by a couple of MPS members who were husband and wife. Even though this doctor was a retired member they ought to have been eligible for representation and had naively relied on Dr Dudley to tell them their full entitlement but it turned out that he had neglected to do so and was now trying to deny any wrong doing. To make matters worse when a Leading Counsel told Dr Dudley that this doctor had been defamed by their member and said "He's obviously got an agenda" Dr Dudley shut him up immediately and refused to allow any proper discussion of it. The Leading Counsel had not been properly instructed by the solicitors to take into account all of the issues and also instructed the leading counsel wrongly over the doctor's entitlement. I asked if this had been a mistake but then I saw other papers in which it showed that there were forces at work in the MPS showing that the defamer was not working alone and his consultant from his house officer days was now an advisor in the MPS, but the MPS had played this close to their chest and were giving nothing away. I asked the doctor what had then happened and he told me that the retired member had written to Dr Dudley about the deception. There was little doubt that Priya Singh would have known about the deception and if she didn't originally she must do now as Dr Dudley still said she was responsible for him. I asked the doctor if anything had been done by the MPS Council and its chairman, Nick Davis, to put matters right. He said he didn't think there had but then it may yet not have reached the ears of the council. I asked the doctor what this other doctor really thought and he said that there has been a deception and an attempted cover up by Dr Dudley for the MPS. The Emigrant asks doctors to reflect carefully about this organisation and recommends that doctors move to the MDDUS.

Field Fisher Waterhouse blames RadcliffesLeBrasseur and the MPS

I remained both curious and troubled about what the doctor had told me about RadcliffesLeBrasseur, formerly Le Brasseur, and Drs Nelson and Bradley and the MPS. I therefore returned and asked for more information. She told me that it was obvious with the benefit of hindsight that RadcliffesLeBrasseur should have challenged the GMC when they had the conversation with them in which the assistant registrar described her as a psychopath. They did nothing although they were instructed by the MPS to defend her professional reputation. She said that the GMC then erased her and at that point the MPS should have appealed as they knew there had been gross unfairness in the handling of her case but they refused to fund any appeal. Her reputation remained in tatters whilst the MPS covered for Le Brasseur and their negligence in not challenging the GMC at the outset. She said that she had raised this matter more recently with her representative in the MPS but declined to tell me who he is. She then said that the MPS obviously know they were wrong and to top it all Field Fisher have now confirmed RadcliffesLeBrasseur's failings in a letter which she showed me. I then asked her to comment and she said, "The MPS are aware of their gross failing and the extreme stress this has placed me under. I feel ill and bereft at what the MPS have done to ruin my career, my reputation and afford me no protection whatsoever and deprive me of an income. They will have to right their wrong and that of Le Brasseur." The Emigrant asks doctors to reflect on whether they really want to be represented by RadcliffesLeBrasseur and are the MPS more in the business of protecting their own solicitor's failings. The GMC's own solicitor knows what has happened in this case. They know that when the chips are down the MPS and RadcliffesLeBrasseur will not really defend the doctor adequately but protect their own backs from any criticism from the GMC over their service to the doctor. Take very good care doctor it may be your reputation next.

Robert Vallings of RadcliffesLeBrasseur makes a threat

Still curious about Robert Summerling and Le Brasseur I inquired again of the doctor and asked her if she had had any recent dealings with them. She said she had and that as more emerged recently, including papers from the MPS and another firm of solicitors she then decided to contact Le Brasseur now RadcliffesLeBrasseur about the whole matter and ask them for her files. She first telephoned to ascertain to whom she should enquire and when they knew the nature of her inquiry she was asked to contact Robert Vallings, the complaints handling partner. She explained to him what she wanted and mostly answers as to why they had done nothing at the time of the psychopath note following the conversation between their former partner Summerling and Gray. At first Robert Vallings tried to prevaricate until the doctor pointed out that she needed her papers and that they had failed in their duty of care towards her and were negligent in doing nothing. When she told him it was already known by a number of doctors how RadcliffsLeBrasseur had failed then he immediately got aggressive and warned her to keep quiet unless she wanted a defamation suite on her hands. She said, "I said to him, 'bring it on' that it wasn't just me but other doctors had complaints about them which would end up in the public domain. After that he quietened down." Following this The Emigrant has found out that other doctors began to write and complain to RadcliffesLeBrasseur and one Indian doctor asked for his money back as they had given him wrong advice, telling him to plead guilty at the GMC to a criminal conviction which the GMC had raised with him in spite of the fact that he was appealing it. RadcliffesLeBrasseur were very haughty declaring that he would fail in his appeal anyway, which he didn't. He said, "It was because I was an Indian and they pretend they don't understand our accents. You will see they didn't represent Chai Patel when he successfully judicially reviewed the PCC of the GMC. He chose other solicitors. He's not stupid but they thought I was. I want my money back and at last Robert Vallings is dealing with that." The Emigrant belives that doctors should seek representation from other firms and not be pressed by the MPS into having RadcliffesLeBrasseur.

Dr Gerard Panting, Robert Summerling and "Life's Loser"

I was concerned about whether there had ever been any resolution of this particular issue for the doctor and telephoned her for details. She told me there had not as yet but for several years it rumbled on and by this time Dr Gerard Panting in London had taken the whole matter up because he seemed far more energetic and helpful than Dr Nelson who failed badly in his duty of care to her. She said that it was not easy to believe they had failed her at the time because they were good at either dumping you completely and then taking it all up again as if it would be OK, but in retrospect it was always a bit of a "con" on their part. Eventually because she kept raising the issue she met with Robert Summerling who wrote a long note about it in which he stated that Gray had overstepped the mark and had prejudged the outcome and was acting far outside his remit and had compromised the whole case. Following this Dr Panting, Robert Summerling and the doctor had a meeting with Charles Gray QC, who expressed disquiet and told them that it was down to the senior medical profession to put this right properly. Following this the doctor now discovers Dr Panting complained to Charles Gray's clerk about the cost of the conference and said that he should be aware that they had put a lot of expensive work his way in the past and they objected to his present fee. There was a follow up meeting between Dr Panting, Summerling and the doctor who expected something to be done following Charles Gray's assertions about the senior doctors doing something about this. Summerling and the doctor left the MPS building after the meeting and to the doctor's shock Robert Summerling stood on the pavement and said to the doctor, "You are what I call one of life's losers" after which he walked off. I asked the doctor what she really thought and she said, "I thought it just goes to show the disdain with which the MPS and the solicitor's treat the junior doctor and for what it's worth I think it's just bloody rudeness. Who do Le Brasseur think they are? I have heard similar things from other doctors but it is something I have never forgotten and neither will they." The Emigrant believes that Le Brasseur who now call themselves RadcliffeLeBrasseur are to big for their boots and doctors should decline to be represented by them.

Dr David Nelson covers up for Le Brasseur

As an emigrant doctor I was anxious to learn more about whether the MPS was really a protection society whom I could entrust the defence of my professional reputation and career to. I therefore went back to the doctor who had told me about her earlier experiences with Dr Bradley and Dr Nelson and asked her if anything had come of her problems. I was surprised to learn that her problems which had begun so many years ago continued still. I asked her what had happened next and she told me that eventually and without any warning the GMC came for her with a number of trumped up charges that mirrored the defence to the claim which the MPS had issued for her against her employing Health Authority at the High Court in London. She said that was when it really all went wrong as the MPS had engaged Le Brasseur, their solicitor, to represent her and they had failed her very badly at the outset. She said at an early stage in the proceedings and certainly before any PPC meeting at the GMC Robert Summerling of Le Brasseur had a conversation with Robert Gray, an assitant registrar of the GMC, during which Gray had told Summerling that the doctor was a psychopath and that psychopaths went to the PCC where they would be struck off. She said they had no evidence for this and had not contacted her with this idea or asked her to undergo any psychiatric examination, but worst of all Summerling made a note of it and said no more and it eventually came out through the assistant solicitor. Summerling didn't even challenge it but let it take its course so she was erased. I asked her if the MPS knew and she said that of course they did , Dr Nelson knew and he tried to fob her off and was just lazy. Her private solicitors wrote to the MPS afterwards concerning an appeal and a challenge about the psychopath issue, but got short shrift. She wrote 12 letters to the MPS and some to Dr Bradley and was either ignored or received excuses and "uppity" replies. She said that with the benefit of hindsight she now realises that Dr Bradley had already put it about to Dr Nelson who would have conveyed it to Le Brasseur, that perhaps with her hearty attitude she had chosen the wrong profession, so it is not surprising that Le Brasseur didn't bother. She said, "They just cover up for each other and of course it must have been an everyday occurence for the MPS and the GMC to discuss doctors in those terms, so when they heard it applied to me they took it as accepted practise." I asked her if she would recommend them but she said, "Shouldn't you ask whether I should trust them? No they will swear black is white if they can wriggle out of their responsibilities and try to pull the wool." The Emigrant suggests that all overseas doctors and any junior doctors looking to join a defence body think twice before entrusting their fate to the MPS. The Emigrant can recommend the MDDUS.

Dr John Bradley poaches a "patient" by default

Dr John Bradley as a senior doctor and chairman of the MPS Council ought to have known the rules when he accepted a referral of the doctor from David Nelson. The rules are clear. Neither of them had any standing to either refer the doctor for a psychiatric examination or any examination for that matter, or to receive the referral. This is because the doctor was registered as a patient with her own GP who knew nothing of this, and was not and never had been registered with David Nelson who was not in active practise and had no rights of referral. Under the circumstances Dr Bradley would have known this and he therefore knew he had no right of acceptance. Moreover he knew that the doctor had been tricked into meeting him, ostensibly for a meeting at the MPS office in Hallam Street, when he wrote on Whittington Hospital notepaper thanking Dr Nelson for referring this doctor to him for a psychiatric examination although she appreciated that she was coming to see him for a chat. He found nothing wrong, so the doctor now finds out, but he noted she had been having a long relationship with a married doctor and he, John Bradley, on first meeting the doctor also noted that in his opinion she was a hearty individual and therefore thought she had probably chosen the wrong career. As he wrote all this down on Whittington Hospital notepaper, including the fact that she did not want to plead "sick doctor", one of the ploys often used by the MPS with the GMC, it went all over the place in the MPS unbeknown to the doctor, and influencing others. For all she knows she has a Psychiatric File on her in whatever hospital took over the Whittington patients. She said, "It's disgraceful to hoodwink me in this way and for Nelson to refer me, when he had no rights, into seeing someone under false pretences. Dr Bradley had no right to be party to this or to accept me for any examination. They should both be reported to the GMC for their unethical behaviour and because they refuse to reply or tell me whether there is a record on me in some NHS psychiatric establishment in London. This is highly unethical, and I now see that Dr Bradley also does work as a GMC assessor, so he's still practising knowing what he did while refusing to explain his actions to me. How much worse can it get when the GMC are trying to polish up its image. The GMC don't know about this. I've tried to get answers but Priya Singh hid it all for weeks and this was part of the complaint which they finally shot out to solicitors to handle." The Emigrant suggests that doctors should be very wary of the MPS, their doctors and suggestions of seeing psychiatrists when there is no indication. If you are not careful you might end up sectioned without a hope in hell of getting out, especially, if like this doctor you have no family here to look out for you interests. It's all very dangerous and sinister.

Dr David Nelson pulls a fast one

A doctor told me about Dr David Nelson. She said they think because he has retired from his position as an advisor that no one will be interested but they should because fundamentally nothing has changed in the MPS since his day. Apparently he was the doctor from the Leeds Office who was charged with looking after doctors' welfare who worked in the North. She said that when she was suspended by her employing authority wrongly and without warning, and when her own consultant was off sick with his recurring manic depression, both the BMA and the MPS took up the case on her behalf and took issue with the arbitrary suspension and the complete disregard for the rules governing suspensions and the breach of her contract. They were mindful that the doctor's professional reputation should be defended though ultimately they failed abysmally in this. The MPS brought in their solicitors Le Brasseur who had no doubt that the suspension was unlawful and arbitrary and ultimately the solicitors issued a writ against the Authority in the High Court in London. After some months and completely without warning Dr Nelson wrote a bizarre letter to the doctor requiring her to undergo a psychiatric examination with the chaiman of the MPS council Dr John Bradley, a consultant psychiatrist, to reassure him that continuing the action against the authority was the right thing to do. The matter was forced through by Dr Nelson who wrote to John Bradley to remind him that he had suggested it. John Bradley could not remember but agreed that he must have, and said that he "would probably live to regret it" having agreed it. However Le Brasseur's solicitor took issue with Dr Nelson in writing and indicated that he had been less that open when he told the council that the doctor had agreed when in fact the solicitor knew that the doctor remained unaware. The solicitor added that there was no indication for this action at all, as proceedings were under way and there was no doubt that the doctor had been gravely wronged and was not mentally ill. Each time the solicitor wrote to Dr Nelson about her disquiet over this he fobbed her off and was evasive. Eventually the doctor received a letter from the Whittington Psychiatric Hospital in London to attend on Dr Bradley for an outpatient appointment. Naturally outraged the doctor, who lived no where near London, refused to go and so the idea was dropped for nine months, only to be reactivated again immediately after the death of her father. She again refused to go but after some weeks David Nelson suggested and persuaded her that John Bradley would just like to meet her at the offices of the MPS in Hallam Street. The doctor said " I naively went along to this meeting and now I find out what it was really about. It just goes to show what a devious person David Nelson was, and as I was to find out to my surprise when in 2004 when I finally retrieved my MPS files from them after some difficulties and discovered what they were really doing. I now realise that David Nelson was also in league and acting on behalf of the District Medical Officer who had so arbitrarily and wrongly suspended me". The Emigrant asks all doctors to be aware of the way in which the MPS can appear to be doing one thing supposedly in your interests and yet be doing another in someone elses interests. Doctors are easily fooled into trusting advisors who smile and appear benevolent and solicitous when a doctor is in a hole. But can you really trust them? Are they really looking after your best interests doctor?

Complaints - Contact priya.singh@mps.org.uk

The Emigrant wonders how Priya Singh can investigate a complaint about herself. There must be a conflict of interests. Moreover how serious is the complaint about Priya Singh and what is it that she did wrong? Can she really treat a complaint seriously or fairly as the MPS claims it will do? I asked the doctor who had told me the problem she had with Priya Singh, who in essence bullied her and added to the stress she was already suffering. She said that as well as the problem when Priya Singh had threatened her over the telephone, she was also invited to make a complaint about the way in which the MPS had dealt with her previously, not the least of which was because a leading counsel had already told the MPS that she had not been represented properly and if he had represented the doctor in the past then the GMC would not have been allowed to get away with what they did. It was after this that Priya Singh collared the doctor on the phone and threatened her. Eventually the doctor made her complaint about the former advisor and the former chairman of the MPS Council, who, when faced with the dilemma of what to do about the GMC and the doctor's employer then did little or nothing to protect her position. In essence they had also acted unethically and in breach of what would now be called Good Medical Practise. As both of them remain registered and one now does work for the GMC then the doctor had put in a very serious complaint indeed. She heard nothing for many weeks, in spite of the urgency of the situation and by chance discovered through her advisor that the matter still lay in Priya Singh's office untouched. Shortly thereafter leading counsel expressed himself forcefully to the advisor, who had told the doctor not to mention to leading counsel that she had made a complaint against the MPS. Under all the circumstances leading counsel was left in the dark and the doctor was stitched up again by the MPS, or so it seemed. The doctor then sent her complaint to the MPS legal claims division who booted it out to solicitors. The doctor said, "I have no idea how the MPS intend to handle this but they have, by their actions and inactions and lack of transparency failed to deal with this in a timely or fair way. I have now instructed solicitors. This is not the first time I have had to do this when the MPS were supposed to be representing me. Last time they eventually had to pay for my private solicitors to do the job which they and their solicitors failed to do. This beneficial society of doctors knows it is causing me even more stress and damage. I feel almost heartbroken to think that they could be so polite and solicitous and all the time they were sticking two fingers up at me." The Emigrant asks you to consider whether they can be trusted and whether Priya Singh is a suitable person to genuinely handle real and serious complaints? This complaints system may only be window dressing.

Dr Priya Singh's method of dealing with stressed doctors.

A doctor told me about Dr Priya Singh and her position in the MPS. Apparently she was the medical director who took over from Stephanie Bown who was moved sideways after Dr Sadek won his case against the MPS in the House of Lords. The doctor said it looked as if Priya Singh might well be the token woman and Asian face of the MPS, who were seeking to rebuild their tarnished image. However Priya Singh didn't realise that racism works both ways and that white doctors may also feel and be racially abused. Neither should Priya Singh or the MPS believe that a white face was necessarily not from an ethnic minority. Apparently when the doctor, who was being represented by another MPS doctor/advisor telephoned with a query Priya Singh, whom she had never dealt with before, came on the phone. The doctor said that she was taken by surprise at Priya Singh's attitude and threatening and abusive accusations, not the least of which was because Priya Singh was whispering as she spoke leaving the doctor shocked, unnerved and wondering what Priya Singh was talking about. The doctor said it reminded her of the time she was taken in a corner and threatened and undermined whilst working in the NHS. The doctor then wrote to Priya Singh, pointing out that she was surprised at Priya Singh using NHS tactics on her, and requested her not to do it again as she was already stressed and Dr Singh was merely adding to that stress. She also said she would forget it and told me she had only written in order to prevent it happening again. In spite of that Priya Singh then wrote an inflammatory letter to the doctor making further accusations which caused her to be more shocked and stressed than before because in essence it also looked defamatory as well. She then raised it with her doctor/advisor in the MPS who did nothing and kept reporting progress back to Priya Singh because he said she was his line manager. Eventually still very disturbed by all of this the doctor wrote again to Priya Singh some weeks later quoting the exact meaning of her words and explaining that Priya Singh had obviously made an error. She said that she thought it might be better to handle it this way because it gave Priya Singh a get out clause. However Priya Singh then replied "upping the anti" and rejecting the get out clause. The doctor said that it was then that she realised that Dr Singh was really bullying her and was someone who thought she could get away with it, and her subsequent actions, which included hiding an important letter, in the months that followed bore this out. The doctor has now been invited to make a proper complaint about Dr Priya Singh. She said "will they really bother and whose desk will that end up on. It's like the mad hatters tea party, they move it around". She said doctors, like buyers, should be aware. The problem is that unlike the GMC who now admit to some of their past failings, the MPS still do not, but leave people like Priya Singh to deal with them.

"Stephanie Bown forced me to resign"

An Indian GP contacted me and told me that Stephanie Bown had forced him to resign. He invited me to his home and I met his family who were very upset by the way he had been forced to resign. He had been a trusted GP for many years in his local community. He had had little or no bother in the past and certainly nothing for the MPS to be worried about. In fact he had been popular and long serving until the day the police turned up at the surgery and arrested him. They held him at the police station for several hours until a solicitor sent by the MPS turned up. He had been accused of assaulting a female patient. In the end it came to nothing, there were no charges and everything was dropped. However as there is no smoke without fire and as this GP had been an independent sort of fellow, with business interests outside of medicine, who had not endeared himself to his PCT the knives were out. The next thing he knew he was being pushed out of his practise for, they said, not attending a patient quickly enough and the patient had not complained. It appeared to be a "put up job" and he was confronted and frightened by the PCT and ejected from his building with no means of defending his position except he telephoned the MPS and Stephanie Bown became involved. By that time he was ill with stress. He thought she would represent his interests but he said that she telephoned him and threatened him that the GMC would become involved and the time he was falsely accused would also be dragged up before the GMC at which point the MPS would not represent him and he would be erased. She then sent him unpleasant letters which he showed me and which suggested that he resigned from his practise and also took voluntary erasure. He said, "I expected the MPS to stand up for me but they did not. I had not expected to end my career in this fashion. The MPS have treated me in this way because I am an Indian doctor."

I met a doctor on a train

I met an Egyptian doctor on a train. He told me a curious story. He said that although he was registered he had not worked as a doctor for eight years. He said he had been let down by the MPS. He said that in his last post at Kings Lynn Hospital he was bullied by two consultants. Apparently the second one had supported the first one when the doctor had complained about bad treatment of him. He told me that when he had left the hospital at the end of his contract they then invited him back and hoodwinked him into taking an assessment which they then failed him on. They sent out an alert letter which blacked him from further work. He then had some help from the MPS who failed to get the alert letter lifted but wished him good luck, sent him on his way and said they would support him in the future if anything arose from all of this. Meanwhile he could no longer work. He then took his file of papers and his complaint about these consultants mistreatment of him to the GMC who asked him to leave the file with them for photocopying. Afterwards it was returned to him and he heard nothing more for two years until the GMC sent him a letter making accusations of incompetence about him instead. He told the GMC he wasn't working but they took no notice but continued to pursue him. As the day of his hearing loomed he went to the MPS and asked them to defend him but Stephanie Bown told him there was no help for him and to go away. He had in the meantime met a GMC member who read the letters and telephoned Stephanie Bown and challenged her as to whether she was a racist. Stephanie Bown denied this but he pointed out to me that Dr Sadek, a Turkish doctor, had successfully challenged the MPS and Stephanie Bown all the way to the House of Lords and won his case for racism against them. He said that speaks for itself. He said that the GMC member then wrote to the MPS advisor who had originally promised to help him if anything untoward arose later and held him to his earlier promise. At that point the MPS pulled out all stops for the Egyptian doctor who was cleared of incompetence. However his life was in ruins and when he asked the MPS to provide more assistance to right the wrong done to him they ran him a merry dance for some time but the upshot was it came to nothing because they refused on the grounds that they couldn't pursue other doctors for compensation. He said he didn't believe them and perhaps if he had been someone else and not an Egyptian and a devout Muslim then they might have acted differently. Eventually he got the alert letter removed himself. He said if it had not been for the GMC member then he would have had no help from the MPS. As he got off the train he told me her name and to look on Dr Rita Pal's website. He said get in touch with her if you can, you may learn something.