Press Release re my Non Compliance Hearing - MPTS - Myhill vs GMC Sept 28 to Oct 1 2020
[UPDATED MARCH 2023]
Preamble
I faced a Non Compliance Hearing at the Medical Practitioners' Tribunal Service [MPTS] from 28 September 2020 to 1 October 2020.
I won this case - i.e. Non Compliance was not found.
Here is a download of the MPTS determination:
MPTS determination on my Non Compliance Hearing
Life the Basic Manual [LTBM] (see Life the Basic Manual YouTube Channel) have released a Press Release and this is reproduced in full as below.
LTBM Press Release
Friday, 2nd October, 2020.
Breaking News: Dr Sarah Myhill Exonerated In Latest Battle with The General Medical Council
Life The Basic Manual Asks: Was This A Politically-Motivated Prosecution - And Has The GMC Gone Too Far This Time?
Myhill vs GMC Sept 28 to Oct 1 2020
Dr Sarah Myhill is one of the leading doctors to stand up against the prevailing orthodoxy that ME is ‘all in the patients’ head’. She has recently demanded a Public Inquiry into the shameful and inadequate treatment of ME patients in the UK, and that the authors of the flawed PACE trial are held to account for their malign impact into the lives of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable, ill sufferers. Was this advocacy for an “undeserving” patient group which made Dr Myhill the target of GMC ire? And is this the best use of the time and resources of the GMC when the medical profession in the UK is facing the biggest public health challenge of our lifetimes? This is after all, a doctor about whom no patient has ever made a complaint; indeed many thousands of Dr Myhill’s patients are fulsome in their testimonies that Dr Myhill’s treatment got them back from the brink to full, or at least better, functioning.
LTBM is happy to report that the latest attempt to muzzle Dr Myhill in the GMC witch hunt against doctors of alternative and functional medicine has failed. Dr Myhill yesterday walked free after a four-day GMC hearing having won her case. This was GMC prosecution number thirty eight against Dr Myhill. Her advocate Mr Charles Taylor described this as “outrageous” behaviour by the GMC. The GMC was represented by Ms Eleanor Grey, Queen’s Counsellor, who jumped up and demanded that Mr Taylor retract that statement. He refused because “outrageous” was the only word that accurately described the unreasonableness of the GMC’s actions over the past twenty years. He said, “Dr Myhill is the most prosecuted doctor in the history of the General Medical Council”. Indeed, every GMC attack on Dr Myhill has involved patients who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome or ME. Dr Myhill stated “CFS/ME is clearly a physical disorder with physical treatments which are proven to work. But doctors who recommend these treatments which involve benign intervention such as vitamin B 12 injections, magnesium, vitamins C and D and anti-viral medications are attacked by the Establishment. This is the ninth occasion that I have been investigated for the use of vitamin B12 injections and the fifth occasion for the use of magnesium”. Mr Charles Taylor, retired barrister, who is also a patron of his local ME group and represented Dr Myhill pro bono, commented “Dr Myhill must be the safest doctor in the country because despite no patient ever complaining about her she is the most investigated doctor – the current score is Myhill 37 GMC nil”. He also repeated the advice given to the GMC by one of its own legal advisers Mr Tom Kark QC who stated
“the problem with the Myhill cases is that all the patients are better and all refuse to give witness statements”.
This latest case hinged on issues of patient confidentiality. In complaining to the GMC about Dr Myhill’s recommendations for the use of a physical approach to treating CFS/ME the complainant GP sent the patient’s entire NHS medical records to the General Medical Council without patient consent and without effective anonymisation. Dr Myhill immediately realised this was a clear breach of DPA legislation. So when the GMC demanded that Dr Myhill release her records to the GMC, she refused stating “even if I correctly anonymised my patient records, they would be juxtaposed in the same bundle as the NHS records and patient confidentiality breached”.
This did not stop the GMC from continuing its persecution of her for the next two years having launched its case against her in October 2018. On numerous occasions Dr Myhill asked the GMC to supply her with the legal basis for its on-going prosecution but this was never forthcoming. Dr Myhill stuck to her guns. The Tribunal agreed with her in its summing up “whilst the GMC did provide some clarification within its letters to Dr Myhill, it was limited and did not address her full concerns. Several of Dr Myhill’s clarification questions directed at the GMC had gone unanswered on numerous occasions and, when answered, the GMC’s response was minimal”.
Mr Charles Taylor took the GMC Tribunal through the General Medical Council’s own Guidance on confidentiality and demonstrated multiple GMC breaches of its own advice. He then went on to underpin this with extensive references to the General Data Protection Act, The Human Rights Act, The National Health Service Act 2006, the Medical Act 1983 and Common Law and further illustrated this with case law. Dr Myhill commented “it was quite extraordinary to see how the GMC case against me fell apart. It made me wonder what malign influence lay behind this ridiculous and, for the GMC, unwinnable prosecution”.
In its judgement of the case, the GMC Tribunal stated, “It considered that Dr Myhill’s actions reflected well on how a doctor approaches their responsibility to their patients”. It went on to say, “The Tribunal considered that Dr Myhill’s genuine concerns in respect of Patient B’s privacy, confidentiality and duties as a doctor were at the heart of her reasoning for not providing the confidential Medical Records”.
Dr Myhill believes this attack on her by the GMC was prompted by her advocacy of CFS and ME being physical and NOT psychological conditions – indeed she has published three scientific papers establishing such followed by a British Medical Association Award winning book “Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Mylagic Encephalitis - it mitochondria not hypochondria”. Her treatments are all available free on her website Dr Myhill's website - which since 2010 has received well over 20 million hits. For those who prefer visual information, go to Life the Basic Manual YouTube Channel which gives short sharp and apposite information. As Dr Myhill stated to the Tribunal:
“As members of the Panel are doubtless aware the CFS/ME world is split and many believe it has a psychiatric basis. The PACE trial of 2011 published in the Lancet seemed to support this hypothesis. However, it came under severe criticism and the conclusions of 40 international independent academics, as published in the Journal of Health Psychology August 2017 (and here is a copy) was that the study was scientifically unsound. Please do read this Journal – it shows, as just one example, how the goalposts for a ‘defined recovery’ were lowered, actually during the PACE trial, to a level so low that someone with that level would have been defined at the beginning of the PACE trial as being recovered. This is just one example of why the PACE trial is unsound. As I was the major exponent of CFS/ME being of physical origin it fell to me to flag this up. In consequence I was asked to report the PACE Authors to the GMC for scientific fraud. This I did in Jan 2018. I received much support from the world ME Community, with over 200 sufferers sending in detailed letters of support for my complaint to the GMC and in excess of 10,000 people signing a petition supporting my complaint. These patients told of how the PACE trial had harmed them physically, emotionally and financially. Many wrote of being left bedridden for years after following the guidance in the PACE trial and others wrote of having lost their jobs and, sometimes their homes, after having been disabled by the treatments recommended in the PACE trial."
"Along with my complaint, the fact that the PACE trial had been proven to be scientifically unsound caught the public eye and this very subject was debated in the House of Commons June 2018 (ref MP Carol Monaghan ) . I know from a FoI search that the GMC followed this debate and was deeply interested in the outcome. However, in July 2018 the GMC wrote to me refusing to investigate the PACE authors."
"In complaining to the GMC about the PACE authors I had supplied the GMC with an extensive scientific evidence base and I expected the GMC to respond likewise. So, I asked the GMC to supply me with the scientific evidence base for such, but it refused. To be clear what I was asking for did not involve the release of any confidential or personal data whatsoever – I was requesting the published scientific literature, available in the Public Domain, upon which the GMC had relied in making its decision – internet links would have sufficed. On Friday 19 Oct 2018 I informed the GMC that I would take its refusal to the Information Commissioner (who in Sept 2019 agreed with me). However, next working day, Monday 22 Oct 2018 the GMC launched its current investigation against me. I believe this was no co-incidence. I may be wrong, but I still believe to this day that the GMC deliberately launched this investigation to pressurise me into dropping my PACE complaint.”
Dr Myhill commented today
“I now know how many of my CFS/ME patients have really felt over the years – ignored and belittled by doctors. I call this MAIMEs - Medical Abuse in ME sufferers. The GMC has dished out to me the same treatment that the medical establishment has dished out to them vis useless management plans and advice which have no evidence base and often make things worse. Now I have won, I want that winning streak to give my patients the strength and determination to continue with the physical treatments they know make them better and eschew the ridiculous psychiatric based therapies which do not address the root physical causes. My next battle is with the Information Commissioner to insist that the GMC release the evidence base for its refusal to investigate PACE authors. Help me to win that battle.”
See Medical Abuse in ME Sufferers (MAIMES)
Related Articles
- Medical Abuse in ME Sufferers (MAIMES)
- “Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Mylagic Encephalitis - it mitochondria not hypochondria”
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