The High Court refused Laurence Flynn’s application for judicial review of the Medical Council’s decision not to take further action on complaints against two consultant radiologists. Mr Justice Hogan ruled that the Council’s original explanation was inadequate, but that its later decision could be justified by the evidence and the statutory standard for poor professional performance.
The complaints concerned Dr C. and Dr. D., who had reviewed imaging relating to Mr Flynn’s reported pain and suspected injury to a small bone at the back of the palate. Mr Flynn alleged that the radiologists had misread or misrepresented the medical evidence. The judgment records that those allegations of deliberate wrongdoing were not supported by the available evidence.
Earlier radiology reviews had found no fracture. In a 2011 report, Professor Nigel Hoggard said the 1994 images showed asymmetry between the left and right pterygoid hamuluses and that a fracture on the left was possible, while noting the images were not sufficiently detailed for certainty. He also said the condition was uncommon and that most general radiologists would be unaware of it.
The Council’s Preliminary Proceedings Committee (PPC) first told Mr Flynn in December 2011 that the complaints did not warrant further action, without explaining why. In April 2012, after reviewing further correspondence and Professor Hoggard’s report, it said the new material did not warrant reconsidering its opinion. It also referred to the report’s observation that radiologists generally would not know the structure as a possible cause of pain.
The court held that the December explanation failed to disclose the essential rationale for the decision. Where the PPC considered allegations against a practitioner’s integrity unfounded, it also had to say so expressly to vindicate that practitioner’s good name.
However, the court found the April decision adequate overall. It reasoned that practitioners could not reasonably be expected to know about a condition so rare that most radiologists would be unaware of it. The PPC was entitled to conclude that the complaint disclosed no realistic case of poor professional performance under the Medical Practitioners Act 2007. The judge said he would have quashed the decision if it rested only on the claim that no significant new information had emerged; its reliance on the report’s account of the condition’s rarity supported the decision independently.
The application was treated as the full hearing after the parties agreed to that course. The court refused the relief sought, so the PPC’s April 2012 decision remained in place.