High Court quashes the finding of Poor Professional Performance against a doctor

In March 2024, the High Court, on appeal from an inquiry held by the Fitness to Practice Committee of the Medical Council (the “Committee”), quashed the finding of Poor Professional Performance (“PPP”) against a doctor for failing to request certain medical tests. The High Court found that the Committee of the Medical Council failed to prove that the Appellant’s conduct constituted such a serious a falling short of standards as to warrant a finding of PPP on his professional record.

Background

The case related to a fitness to practise inquiry by the Committee into Dr Ahmed (the “Appellant”), a medical oncology registrar which took place on various dates in March and July 2015. The Committee made one finding of PPP against the Appellant and referred the matter to the Medical Council (the “Council”) for consideration of the appropriate sanction to impose. In 2015, the Council decided to formally advise the Appellant as to his conduct, as provided under section 71(a) of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007 (the “Act”).

1. Judicial Review Proceedings
The Appellant issued proceedings by way of judicial review in December 2015 seeking to quash the report of the Committee and the decision of the Council in respect of sanction. The Appellant argued inter alia that the absence of a right of appeal from a decision of the Fitness to Practice Committee in every instance, including where a sanction of advice, admonishment or censure was imposed, was in breach of his rights under the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. The Appellant also challenged the constitutional validity of section 71 and 75 of the Act. 

The Court ultimately held that there was no basis for granting any of the reliefs sought and the proceedings were dismissed. 

2. Court of Appeal 
In 2021, the Appellant appealed the decision to refuse the granting of any of the reliefs sought in his judicial review proceedings, to the Court of Appeal. Ultimately, however, the Appellant was unsuccessful in his appeal. The Court of Appeal found that there was no authority that supported Dr Ahmed’s argument that the fitness to practise process for doctors must contain a right of appeal to the courts in every instance and that the appellant could point to no specific authority to support his argument that a right of appeal was required. 

Decision of the High Court 

Following this and pursuant to Section 75 of the Act, the Appellant subsequently invoked his statutory right to appeal the finding of PPP made by the Committee, from 2015. The primary issue that was considered by the High Court was the question of whether the CEO proved his case of PPP to the requisite standard. In making its decision, the Court had regard to the Corbally¹ principles which outline the threshold of seriousness to be met before a finding of PPP can be made. It is now well established that only conduct which represents a serious falling short of the expected standards of the profession could justify a finding against a doctor of PPP. Additionally, the Court had regard for the fact that this matter was a “once – off” error and that it did not involve an appraisal of a sample of the appellants work and that this error did meet the threshold of seriousness required for a finding of PPP. The Court also noted that some allowance should be granted due to the historic nature of the complaint and the subsequent passage of time that had since elapsed.

Ultimately, the Court was not satisfied that the appellant’s conduct constituted such a serious falling short of standards as to warrant a finding of PPP on his professional record. As such, the Court allowed the appeal and quashed the finding of PPP and resultant sanction of the Appellant.   

For more information, please contact Partner Eoin McGlinchey or Solicitor Kavi Abbi from our Litigation and Dispute Resolution Team.  

1. Corbally v The Medical Council and Ors [2015] IESC 9