Affifa Farrukh & John F Mayberry examine whether clinicians & expert witnesses are always as qualified as they appear
The creation of foundation trusts gave hospital managements a wide range of powers. Among these was the ability to appoint consultants outside the guidelines promoted by the Royal Colleges and the General Medical Council (GMC). The purpose of those guidelines was to ensure a high-quality and consistent service to patients across the UK, and this included an insistence that candidates had completed a recognised training programme in the specialty either in the UK or other member states of the EU.
However, as a result of the loosening of this earlier control, there has been an exponential rise in the appointment of consultants to substantive posts who have not completed such a recognised training programme. Indeed, candidates are being appointed who have never successfully taken any postgraduate clinical examination in the UK or the EU. Nevertheless, their status within a trust is identical to that of consultants who are on the specialist register of the GMC, having completed a recognised
