Raj Mattu. GMC siddles up to Whistleblower

Doctor under GMC Investigation

There was a true story I once heard on Heart FM. A large snake had been the pet of a lady for many years. During a certain time, the snake stopped eating but started lengthening itself next to its owner. The owner went to the vet and asked what was wrong with the pet snake. The vet stated that the snake was getting ready to eat her.

Now, that is very similar to the behaviour of GMC Towers. Our medical regulatory body has a whistleblowing policy which they never follow. It then often decides to reverse the complaint upon the whistleblower. I have first hand experience of this because the matter I whistleblew on was never taken up or considered by the GMC. The doctors who failed in the matter of Ward 87 continue to work quite happily. By contrast the GMC have harassed me so much through their procedures, that I am no longer in medicine. Then I am a junior doctor and the only junior who has whistleblown to this extent.

Consultant whistleblowers have a better survival power but they have a great deal of support. Nevertheless, you can see the GMC siddle up to Raj Mattu in this article here. In 2009, Mattu was exonorated by the GMC.

"Dr Mattu, aged 49, was suspended by the former Walsgrave Hospital over allegations of bullying in 2002. He was marched out of the hospital less than six months after exposing how patients had died on overcrowded bays.

Now the General Medical Council (GMC) has exonerated the cardiologist of more than 150 complaints made against him by the hospital trust after one of the longest suspensions in NHS history"

Of course, it is only exoneration as the GMC sees it. Mattu's fitness to practise record at the GMC is ruined. He doesn't know this yet but there we have it. The complaints will remain on his file for good and of course the double jeopardy rule may apply in the future. He has gone back to the same Trust and no doubt they will create more problems for him in the future.

Mattu is right about one issue - it is immensely difficult defending any simple allegation when it comes to the GMC. An organisation that is completely and utterly psychopathic normally has no insight into the repercussions of whistleblowing eg organisational reprisal. As we can see from the case featured on NHS Behind the Headlines, many whistleblowers who are doctors are frisked by the GMC. It is a broadly unrecognised phenomena but nevertheless, it does happen. The GMC may not have got Mattu on this occasion but the future prognosis is not good. They will soon start to nit pick at his performance during revalidation and appraisal. Close scrutiny is what they are into. Whistleblowers according to them need monitoring and made an example of.

Nevertheless, Mattu is a free man - for now.

Dr Mattu welcomed the GMC’s verdict and the end of the “immeasurable stress” of having to defend himself.

"He now hopes to be fully reinstated and retrained to carry out his full medical and research duties at University Hospital in Walsgrave and the University of Warwick.

He said: “It has been a difficult decade for my family, friends and me.

“I am very grateful for the support of the local community and my advisers during this terrible ordeal.

“We dearly hope that we shall now be allowed to have a normal life. ”

University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire Trust declined to comment on the GMC’s decision or how much it had spent pursuing disciplinary action against Dr Mattu"