Oliver Thorne speaks to LBC about the decision of the disciplinary tribunal in the tragic case of Martha Mills.
A disciplinary tribunal has ruled that due to exceptional circumstances no further action will be taken against Professor Thompson, the senior doctor who was found guilty of ‘misconduct which impairs his fitness to practise’ in his treatment of 13-year-old Martha Mills.
Speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC, Slee Blackwell partner Oliver Thorne said that the fact that Professor Thompson received no sanction did not come as a complete surprise to him. Oliver, a leading medical negligence lawyer and a regular contributor to the show, commented:
“My team and I see cases every day where catastrophic errors of judgement are made by clinicians, and they face no punitive consequences. So, I’m not surprised at all by the tribunal’s decision that because it was a single lapse of judgment in an otherwise exemplary career no further action would be taken against Professor Thompson.”
Oliver explained:
“It is rare for disciplinary action to be taken against healthcare professionals when a genuine mistake has been made by them. The general feeling is that it is not in the public interest to do so.”
Professor Thompson had been the on-duty consultant at King’s College hospital in August 2021, two days before Martha died from sepsis. The case received widespread coverage and led to the introduction of Martha’s rule last year, a rule that grants the right to a second medical opinion in English hospitals.
An investigation established that Professor Thompson failed to escalate treatment to an intensive care unit or to conduct a direct in-person review and assessment of Martha, even after a rash developed. A coroner subsequently found that Martha would probably have survived if the warning signs of her rapidly deteriorating condition had been identified and she had been transferred to intensive care earlier, which her parents had requested doctors to do.
The General Medical Council had argued that the Professor should be suspended, claiming it was necessary to maintain standards and public confidence in the profession. However, the tribunal felt that because Professor Thompson would have to live with these events as a stain on his reputation, no additional sanction was necessary.
