GMC starts historic test trial
Seven doctors accused of prescribing the heroin substitute, methadone, inappropriately to patients will appear before the General Medical Council (GMC) today, in a test case that could determine their futures and the wider issue of how drug addiction is treated in the UK.
The case is the first of it kind in the GMC’s 145-year history, as the doctors have been charged jointly with serious professional misconduct.
The seven doctors held surgery at a private drug treatment centre in Essex, the Stapleford Centre, where about 200 heroin addicts received prescriptions for controlled drugs.
Facing the threat of being struck off are Dr Colin Brewer, founder of the clinic, Anthony Haines, Hugh Kindness, Nicolette Mervitz, Martin O’Rawe, Ronald Tovey and Timothy Willocks.
The GMC said Dr Brewer allegedly prescribed ‘inappropriately and/or irresponsibly to a number of patients having regard to the nature and/or the amounts and/or the combination of the drugs prescribed.
‘It is further alleged that Dr Brewer’s management of a number of patients was inappropriate and/or irresponsible because he did not carry out adequate tests of compliance in the course of the management, he had no adequate contact with the patients’ GPs and/or he did not maintain adequate contact with the patients.’
It is claimed the amount of drugs prescribed at Ongar, Essex, and Belgravia, central London, by the accused doctors was ‘excessive’, opening up the way for the drugs to be sold on the black market.
The hearing at GMC headquarters in London is expected to last up to three months.
