The High Court has ordered discovery of a transcript from a Medical Council fitness-to-practise hearing in a child’s medical negligence case, allowing an appeal from the Master of the High Court’s refusal to order its production.
The child, suing through his mother and next friend, alleges he suffered serious brain injuries during his delivery at Mullingar General Hospital on 28 February 2006. The judgment records that he was under the care of the Health Service Executive’s midwifery and nursing staff and a consultant obstetrician. These are allegations in the underlying proceedings; the judgment does not determine them.
The separate committee hearing concerned a complaint about the second defendant’s conduct and management of the birth. The complaint was not upheld. Under the Medical Practitioners Act 1978, the judgment said, the doctor had withheld consent to publication of the committee’s findings. The appeal concerned discovery of the hearing transcript, not a challenge to the committee’s decision or to its exclusion of the mother and her solicitor after she gave evidence.
The mother had been required to provide the committee with documents in her possession, including notes she appeared to have made during labour. The judgment said the second defendant’s lawyers had those notes and access to the transcript and evidence from the committee hearing. The mother and her solicitor, who had been refused permission to remain after her evidence, did not know what had followed.
The defendants argued that the transcript was protected by statutory privilege and that it was not necessary for the child’s case. The judge rejected those arguments. He held that the transcript was not privileged from discovery and could assist the plaintiff in litigating the negligence claim. Its contents might prove useful or might not, but the second defendant’s access to the full hearing record, alongside the mother’s notes, created an inequality between the parties, the judge said.
The court held that disclosure was proportionate to the doctor’s confidentiality interest in these circumstances. It directed that the transcript could be used only in the underlying action and said the court could regulate its use. The judge allowed the appeal and ordered the Master’s order to be amended accordingly. The decision orders discovery; it does not decide the negligence claim or make the committee’s findings public.