The law on doctors speaking out.

Abstract

Gillian Cardy, a senior clinical medical officer with Bath District Health Authority who was suspended from her duties on 16 December for speaking to the press about planned cuts in family planning services, was reinstated on 8 January after a health authority hearing. At the subsequent meeting of the health authority on 13 January a motion was passed expressing regret at the recent distressing events concerning Dr Cardy and appre? ciation for her work. She had spoken out about plans to cut back the work of family planning clinics and close well women clinics, which, she said, would lead to more unwanted pregnancies. In January last year David Josephs, director of community medicine for South Bedfordshire Health Authority, was suspended for 10 weeks pending a disciplinary hearing after he spoke to the press, and on radio and television, despite instructions from his district general manager to stay silent. Dr Josephs said that stories in the press misquoted him on proposals for schoolchildren to be given condoms to protect them from AIDS and that his subsequent talking with the press was simply an attempt to put the record straight. Dr Josephs was reinstated with a formal written warning for managerial misconduct after a disciplinary hearing that also included a charge that he had leaked a confidential paper about measures to prevent AIDS to the director of social services of the local authority and chief environmental health officers, which he said was sent to professional colleagues for comment under a covering letter marked confidential. He sought leave to appeal against the written warning to the regional health authority on the grounds that there had been a gross miscarriage of justice, but this was refused.