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Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba fitness-to-practise review set for April

The Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service review hearing for Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba has been set for 8 and 9 April.

The hearing will decide whether Dr Bawa-Garba’s fitness to practise is still impaired, and whether she can safely return to work.

In December last year, it was announced that the MPTS had extended the suspension of Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba by a further six months, in order to ‘protect the public’.

This ruling followed a Court of Appeal judgment against the GMC in August ordering Dr Bawa-Garba not to be struck off the medical register.

This came after the high-profile High Court case which saw the GMC succeed in an appeal against an MPTS suspension order, strengthening the doctor’s sanction to being struck off.

Dr Bawa-Gaba’s appeal case

Dr Bawa-Garba was struck off the medical register after the High Court ruled in favour of the GMC in the case against its own fitness-to-practise tribunal in January this year.

James Laddie, the QC representing Dr Bawa-Garba, claimed at her appeal hearing in July that there were ‘systemic failings which contributed to the environment in which Dr Bawa-Garba came to make the mistakes which led us to this court’.

Dr Bawa-Garba had originally diagnosed Jack Adcock with gastroenteritis and failed to spot from blood tests that Jack had sepsis, or review chest X-rays that indicated he had a chest infection.

Following the initial High Court ruling, which caused an uproar from the medical profession, the Government has announced its intention to strip the GMC of the power to appeal MPTS decisions. However the GMC has said it will continue until legislation changes.