Introduction

This blog serves to expose the inside of the Medical Protection Society in a way that will surprise the reader. After all what is the MPS? It is said to be a discretionary mutually beneficial society created to help doctors facing disciplinary problems. It boasts of the fact that there will always be a medical advisor on hand to support you and look after your best interests. But is that what really happens and whose interests are they really looking after doctor? Is it really yours? Well it probably is if you are a consultant or a GP principle. If however you are neither of these then it may not be your best interests they are looking after but in fact someone elses best interests including their own and including your regulator's interests. In fact it is likely that they will be acting with a conflict of interests, whilst hoping that you the doctor will not twig there is anything wrong and if you do they will smooth it over with their emollient words, assuring you that all is OK. Can you really be sure? You cannot. This blog will tell the tale of this organisation and what lies in it's archives. It will tell a story of cover up. This is it as never before.

Friday 17 August 2007

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.

1 comment:

paul said...

I have been using MPS and Radcliffes Lebrassuers. MPS appointed Law firm.
I used MPS to support me after a whistleblowing at Brighton and Susssex University Trust Hospital.
My HPC case comes up in Aug 21st.
This was a vexatiously motivated case against me. I will explain the whole story if the outcome is perverse on august 21st 2009