Shirine Boardman. The Final Analysis

Sharks know nothing.

Witchdoctor recently hinted that Shirine Boardman had lost her Employment Tribunal challenge. I then went off to quickly look this up in the local papers. Here is the extract

From Coventry Telegraph.

"A WARWICK doctor who leaked the private details of more than 80 patients has had her claim for unfair dismissal thrown out. Dr Shirine Boardman admitted faxing the names and contact details of patients from Warwick Hospital to a community health project where she was on secondment.South Warwickshire General Hospitals, the NHS trust which runs Warwick Hospital, ruled she had breached patient confidentiality and sacked her for gross misconduct in July 2008.

Despite that, Dr Boardman and her secretary continued to call the other patients, a decision that Ms Monk branded “somewhat surprising”.The tribunal heard Dr Boardman did not have permission to share the patient details with an another project when she took them off the hospital’s database.Despite that, Dr Boardman and her secretary continued to call the other patients, a decision that Ms Monk branded “somewhat surprising”.The tribunal heard Dr Boardman did not have permission to share the patient details with an another project when she took them off the hospital’s database. It also heard Dr Boardman was sent an email warning her that she had sole responsibility for keeping secure all the patient details she took off the database.

Ms Monk ruled: “There is no real doubt in this case that misconduct was the reason for dismissal.”

A Warwick Hospital spokeswoman declined to comment on the tribunal’s decision.

Dr Boardman and her legal team were unavailable for comment.

I have highlighted the word "gross misconduct".

Witchdoctor tells us this is all because the dismissal is protocol driven. I am of course going to tell everyone a different story. In 2004, the General Medical Council changed the term "Serious Professional Misconduct" to "Misconduct".This term lacked definition and it was taken to mean "any term that the Trust or the GMC" considers to be "misconduct". This element was tested in the Judicial Review test case in R v General Medical Council Ex Parte Pal. with a view to fine tuning and qualifying the word "Misconduct". The judge in that case ruled that even a link to a publicly available transcript [with the permission of the data subject] is capable of being "misconduct" by going to the " doctors integrity".

This kind of behaviour and the lowering of the threshold of " gross misconduct" is also viewed in Shirine Boardman's case. Essentially, the term "Misconduct" is floated around the planet and given any definition the Trust or the GMC deems fit depending on the circumstances. If the Trust disapproves of a doctor, anything can be deemed "misconduct" and at present there is little defence against this now. Of course, while the Daily Mail reports the rising complaints against doctors, the profession has done nothing to protect themselves against this. Jobbing Doctor disputes the statistics. He may not dispute the MDU and the GMC statistics on this aspect.

This combined with the short sighted attitude of the Judiciary in Employment cases brings us to question - what rights does the doctor have anymore? Even the judiciary has no idea that the term "misconduct" should be qualified and definitely properly to balance the rights of the complainant to the rights of the doctor.

Boardman has done nothing wrong. We all know that. She has though been a decent person and admitted to certain issues. This has in time and as predicted bitten her badly and it has placed a stain on her unblemished record. By comparison, Dr Jane Barton, a lady who did end lives continues to work in the National Health Service and preserves her employment. We term this inequality. We also term this injustice. In Race Equality terms, this is a spectacular disaster for the National Health Service.