Medical Protection While LapDancing

Lack of Support by the MPS

In life there are many things we take for granted. Doctors often overlook the impact of one quick twist of fate can have on your life. These twists of fate can be completely accidental. Fate then forces you to deal with the underworld of medicine. You discover how cold everyone is around you and how unhelpful and ineffective your defence union can be. It drags you from your fun loving safety zone to an area you don't quite understand. Lack of understanding means you blindly trust those who are meant to protect your best interests. This is until you discover that the MPS aren't there to protect your interests at all. That is the day you take your rose tinted specs off and start to develop a sense of independence away from people who relish the idea of watching doctors suffer. The Medical Protection Society was my defence union RE North Staffordshire NHS Trust. The world can see what a substandard organisation they actually are by simply asking the question, what support did they offer me? I wrote about the antics on the post - The Sleeping Beauty Syndrome.

Unlike many people, I don't give the Medical Protection Society the time of day. I don't rate their advisers at all. Priya Singh simply totters around in her high heels gloating about her degrees. Alison Metcalf is just the same. Over the years, the consistent laziness of these women in sharp suits have destroyed doctor's lives. Their service is ineffective, their knowledge of the law is poor and the lawyers they hire are as dim as they are. These advisers are of the view that they can flaunt their degrees and we will simply bow down. Of course, I am not one for bowing down to anyone and I can question factual accuracy until the cows come home.

No one has to take my word for it. I have a large axe to grind against the Medical Protection Society because of their catastrophic failings in my whistleblowing issue. It is a justified axe. The failings that managed to blight the rest of my career as a doctor [ short lived as it was]. What is interesting is this - each person they seem to fail miserably happens to be of asian origin. The Medical Protection Society will not tell us their statistics on ethnic data but we just have to observe what they did in Saher Sadeks case. Saher's adviser was the same as mine Stephanie Bown. Stephanie Bown once wrote me a letter saying " The MPS Are Racist" then wrote me second one and added the word " Not" between the "Are" and " Racist". How ironic. I ought to publish it someday just to laugh at her freudian slip.

The MPS likes the world to forget about cases but I am always there to remind the world of their failings not just in my case but that of my colleagues and friends. The race issue is merely an observation. I don't think their dislike of me has anything to do with the fact I am a British Asian, it has more to do with the fact that I annoy them. Quite right too - hope they stay annoyed for the term of their natural life. I came to the conclusion a long time back that litigation provides no accountability, words in the right order provides a great deal of accountability. I am not about to be tight lipped about the MPS.

The case I wish to raise revolves around the treatment of Dr Tushar Bhadra. Bhadra continues to fight to clear his name. His skirmish with Dr Elizabeth Paice was listed on Dr Rant sometime ago. A High Court judge recently admitted that the GMC had erased Bhadra "Unlawfully". Of course, the reason for Dr Bhadra's problems has been due to the substandard representation by the Medical Protection Society. The Medical Protection Society have been negligent and highly obstructive. I have observed their treatment of Tushar for one year now. Tushar writes to the MPS regularly. The MPS ignores half of what he tells them. So in his time of strife, the MPS failed to protect him. The enclosed is just another one of those letters received by Bhadra. Please note Dr Barclay's crowings of his degrees. Those degrees are used to puff his chest out. Despite their obtuse and insulting attitude towards Bhadra, Bhadra went onto win his first application.

This leading case was not featured by the British Medical Journal. It was also never featured by the leading medical media. This is though a land mark case that gives any doctor the right to sue the GMC in an Employment Tribunal. The MPS refused to fund representation here.

The Medical Protection Society allegedly represents Professor Elizabeth Paice. The MPS can be seen to be smarming their way through the Dr Skidmore case. The MPS's favourite solicitor Mr Ralph Shitway [ I keep making this spelling errors - darn] was found guilty by the Law Society. Again, no national medical media features the vital statistics of Ralphy boy. He is a fat lawyer, with a fat pay check that can't do his job properly. The MPS continue to hire him as they continue to use the firm Radcliffe's. The secret about Radcliffes was that Paul Saffron was caught with his paints down syphoning funds from clients accounts. Apparently it was used to fund lap dancing girls. Again, the MPS has not felt these events have been important enough to inform their members.

This was an entertaining version of the Radcliffe's Lawyer

"Suicide attempts come in many forms, but the long-distance planning of Paul Saffron, a lawyer, takes some beating. Mr Saffron, 43, has been found guilty of "conduct unbecoming of a solicitor" and thrown out of the profession. He suffered from depression, a tribunal was told, and wanted to kill himself, "but because he is so moral a man, he had to do it in a way that made his children hate him." So he gradually extracted £223,000 from his firm's client account and "spent the money quickly so that he would have no option but to kill himself when he was discovered". And he spent it on – a flat? A Ferrari? No, he spent it in London strip clubs, where he became friends with the lap dancers. An extraordinary case of a man attempting to die of shame – and failing"

So in conclusion, this is the "high" class defence union chosen by half the medical profession. I suppose if all asians paint themselves with a Dulux shade of pink, they might get somewhere. In the meantime, I present the MPS letter turning Bhadra down. I might buy Bhadra a good drop of dulux hazy pink but its not just the dulux paint that is needed here, its the Haberdashers education and even the large nose that rises to the morning air. Perhaps collagen could be a solution for the stiff upper lip.

Maybe a trout pout like Priya Singh or Alison Metcalf is the solution to good representation :). Who knows anymore! Clearly Skidmore had the trout pout that impressed Ralph Shitway [ oh dear, another typographical error] :). I keep having these nervous tics following a certain Scottish surgeon's mastery of anglosaxon dialect. The MPS is Shit............. [ fingers being dragged off laptop as we speak].

Then again, perhaps Skidmore was just on the MPS's committee :).

Enc - Letter from MPS to Dr Bhadra

----- Original Message -----
From: Medical.Leeds@mps.org.uk
To: tushar.bhadra@talktalk.net
Cc: Mellman-Jones, Juliette
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 6:12 PM
Subject: MPS funding for legal representation Ref: 127240

MPS

Granary Wharf House, Leeds LS11 5PY, United Kingdom

Website: www.mps.org.uk

A member of The Medical Protection Society Limited group of companies

Professional support and expert advice

From: Dr I Barclay
PA: Deborah Hall
Date: 17 October 2008
Direct dial: +44 (0) 113 241 0517
Facsimile: +44 (0) 113 241 0501



Dear Mr Bhadra

Thank you for your recent correspondence culminating in your two similar but not identical faxes of 14 October in which you request MPS funding for legal representation at your ET hearing of 28 November 2008 and also for assistance in respect of your appeal against the judicial decision of 29 July not to grant you a Judicial Review of the GMC's actions. I apologise for the delay in replying but I have had to give careful consideration to your correspondence and revisit earlier papers as well.

I have also been approached by Mr Islam of Messrs Lawmans and advised him you do not have the benefit of legal expenses insurance, which he appeared to believe MPS might provide.

Your request for assistance has not been considered further by Council of MPS as unfortunately there has not been a meeting in October and the next one is in mid November. I have however discussed your case with the Chairman of Council, whom you have previously met and apprised him of the position.

As a result of that discussion I can confirm that the MPS decision with regard to the ET remains as previously advised to you: MPS will not assist with the legal funding of your action. In respect of the appeal against the decision not to grant JR, bearing in mind the judge's determination and advice from our legal advisers, the MPS position remains as previously advised to you in my letters 1 and 6 August, that we will not support this either given that there are no reasonable prospects of success. The facts of the case will be put to MPS Council in November for ratification of the position.

I regret your view that "[your] experience with lawyers chosen by MPS has been unpleasant and damaging". My experience of the service provided to you by our legal advisers is in direct contradiction to that and I believe your view might be clouded by the fact you do not agree with their advice. A very considerable amount of resource both financial and manpower has been expended in pursuing your case over the years and I am disappointed that you feel that "MPS has wasted a lot of time already, not to mention 10 years of [your] life". I absolutely refute that statement and fail to see how you can draw the causal link between MPS and the years when you have been unable to work.

I am sorry that the MPS position is not the one which you wish.

Yours sincerely

Dr I Barclay LLB MBChB FFFLM MRCGP DRCOG

Deputy Medical Director