Leaving Disabled Children Without Medical Care whilst in pain/ DDA issue

Liz R made this Freedom of Information request to General Medical Council This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was refused by General Medical Council.

Dear General Medical Council,

A child (and others) was diagnosed with fecal loading and fecal impactions confirmed by x-rays on more than one occasion, an inflammatory bowel disease confirmed by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital (by the then Paediatric Gastroenteroligist, Martin Brueton, now, I believe a Fellow of Imperial College Kensington who claimed also that ''children like him get these things'' (meaning gut problems)) as did The Royal Free Hospital diagnose this gut problem under Prof.Simon Murch, the diagnosis showed pictures )sent to me via email) from the endoscopy camera of ulcerated bowels in this child and other children like him, these ulcerated conditions are going without treatment, whatever the conditions are termed- and in one child - now adult, my own, named James Jones, it is thought has gone without any treatment in ten years, therefore likely left impacted and in protracted pain for approx Ten years- this childs' welfare - (who for some reason is the responsibility of RBKC and Westminster Councils) could be suffering fecal impaction plus ulcerative colitis of any form that would be very painful and leave children like this at risk of blood poisoning and other disease that could be fatal-it is very worrying - please will you tell us what the information and procedure is now for children who were diagnosed as having inflammatory bowel disease or 'autistic gut' or LNH3/ Lymphoid Nodular Hyperplasia Grade 3 and how many learning-disabled or autistic children have been noted to suffer from Bowel Disorders in the last 10 years that have come to your attention in any form?

Sadly my own son is being kept from me by the (unsuitable, criminal recidivist) father and supported by councils for which there is no explanation that is viable, other than their own professional negligence and endangerment of my child, I wonder how common this problem has become, leaving disabled children in pain and without parents who care for them?

Thank you for your time and trouble

Yours sincerely

Elizabeth Lucy R

FOI, General Medical Council

Dear Ms R

Information request - F11/3596/JM

Thank you for your e-mail of 20 February 2011 in which you request
information in accordance with the provisions of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

We will consider your request and you will normally receive the
information you seek within the 20 working day limit set by the FOIA.

The FOIA lists a number of exemptions that may prevent the release of
part, or all, of the information that you have requested. We will make
an assessment of the requested information and if it is subject to an
exemption you will be informed of this, together with details of your
right of appeal.

Your request has been allocated to Janet Mauldridge. If you have any
queries concerning your request you can contact Ms Mauldridge on 0161
923 6324 or email [email address].

Yours sincerely

Sarah Leigh
Information Access Team Administrator
0161 923 6398
[email address]

General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street
Manchester
M3 3AW

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Janet Mauldridge \(0161 923 6324\), General Medical Council

Our ref: F10/3596/JM

Dear Ms R

I refer to your email to the GMC dated 20 February 2011 in which you
requested information in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA).

Firstly, in relation to your request for details of the procedure for
children diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease or `autistic gut', or
LNH3/Lymphoid Nodular Hyperplasia Grade 3, in accordance with section
1(1)(a) of the FOIA I must inform you that the GMC do not hold this
information.

You also enquired how many learning-disabled or autistic children have
been noted to suffer from bowel disorders in the last 10 years that have
come to the attention of the GMC.

In order to provide you with a response we have performed a search of our
electronic complaint management system. This system has been in operation
since April 2006.

It may be useful at this point if I explain some background as to how we
record information regarding complaints on the system. Although we do
record a 'category' for allegations received against a doctor (for example
clinical care or working with colleagues), we do not have category
specific enough to allow us to easily retrieve complaints which fit the
description of your request.

In order to provide you with a response we have therefore performed a key
word search on a free text field which allows an Investigation Officer to
enter a description of the allegations against a doctor.

We have performed the search with the key words `bowel' and `children' or
`child'. We have also searched for the key words `stomach' and `child',
`inflammatory bowel', `autistic gut' or `gut'.

After reviewing the details of the complaints returned as a result of
these searches we can find no instances of complaints relating to
learning-disabled or autistic children suffering from bowel disease.

Please note that this search does not encompass all complaints received as
this free text field is only routinely populated when a complaint has been
promoted to a case; therefore it does not include those complaints that we
closed down at an early stage. Key word searches are also heavily reliant
on the text entered by our Investigation Officers.

In your e-mail you asked that the information should cover the last 10
years. I should explain that, prior to 2006, our fitness to practise
information was largely paper based. In order for me to provide the above
information for previous years it would be necessary to manually search
our paper files. 

As these files are not structured in such a way as to highlight cases that
you request we would have to search through the file of each complaint
received each year. This search would encompass us reviewing in excess of
4,980 complaints, this being the number of complaints received by the GMC
in 2005 alone.

Section 12 of the FOIA allows a public authority not to undertake a search
for the information requested where they estimate that the cost of
complying with the request for information would exceed the `appropriate
limit'. The Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit)
Regulations 2004 has set the `appropriate limit' at £450 for public
authorities such as the GMC. This is the equivalent to two and a half days
work. In estimating the cost the public authority can take into account
the cost of determining, locating, retrieving and extracting the
information requested. We reserve the right to refuse requests that would
cost in excess of this limit and will significantly impact on our
business.

For us to locate, retrieve and check over 4,980 files, would take us
approximately 830 hours. (We have estimated that it would take us
approximately 10 minutes to check one case file, to check 4,980 would take
us over 830 hours)

Based on an hourly rate of £25 per hour (which is set by the Freedom of
Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004) it would cost
us a minimum of £20,750 to locate retrieve and check the information
requested. Therefore your request would cost us well in excess of the
`appropriate limit' to process.

Consequently we believe that this part of your request falls under section
12 of the FOIA. As such we do not believe that we are required to comply
with this part of your request and in accordance with the requirements of
the FOIA this email acts as a Refusal Notice.

You have the right of appeal against this decision. If you wish to appeal
please set out in writing your grounds, and send to Julian Graves,
Information Access Manager, at the address at the bottom of this response
or email [1][email address] You also have the right to appeal to the
Information Commissioner, the independent regulator of the FOIA. If
necessary, Mr Graves will provide the relevant contact details.

Yours sincerely

Janet Mauldridge

Information Access Officer

0161 923 6324

[email address]

General Medical Council

3 Hardman Street

Manchester

M3 3AW

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Dear Janet Mauldridge (0161 923 6324),

I'm sorry but you do have this information due to a very long investigation regarding the MMR, Andrew Wakefield, Simon Murch, Royal Free Hospital and so on.

The evidence must be with you still?

If not, where is it please? It would be within those records (of that disciplinary hearing) I'm guessing?

Yours sincerely,

Liz R

Janet Mauldridge \(0161 923 6324\), General Medical Council

I am currently out of the office and will not return until Tuesday 8 March
2011. Your email will not be forwarded during my absence. If you enquiry
is urgent please contact the Information Access Team on 0161 923 6365 or
email [GMC request email].

Unless otherwise expressly agreed by the sender of this email, this
communication may contain privileged or confidential information which is
exempt from disclosure under UK law. This email and its attachments may
not be used or disclosed except for the purpose for which it has been
sent.

If you are not the addressee or have received this email in error, please
do not read, print, re-transmit, store or act in reliance on it or any
attachments. Instead, please email the sender and then immediately delete
it.

General Medical Council

3 Hardman Street, Manchester, M3 3AW

Regents Place, 350 Euston Road, London, NW1 3JN

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The GMC is a charity registered in England and Wales (1089278) and
Scotland (SC037750)

Liz R (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

If you google 'Simon Murch Autistic Gut' you will find videos online, they could be on blogs/youtube - check around, for now here is one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hizX5YF-ls

Julian Graves (0161 923 6351), General Medical Council

Dear Ms R

Thank you for your email below which has been referred to me for consideration. This will receive my attention in line with our comments and complaints procedure for information requests. This sets a target response time of 20 working days. I will endeavour to respond to you within this timeframe.

If you have any further queries in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Julian Graves

Julian Graves
Information Access Manager
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street
Manchester
M3 3AW

Tel. no: 0161 923 6351
Email: [email address]

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Dear Julian Graves (0161 923 6351),

You have simply ignored complaints procedures in the past, I regard this reply as devoid of law and request an Internal Review for you to look at all my correspondence to you since 2000 please- the crimes go back THAT far and you have failed to investigate them and not complied with any known law

Yours sincerely,

Liz R

Julian Graves (0161 923 6351), General Medical Council

1 Attachment

Dear Ms R

Please find attached my response to your appeal.

Yours sincerely

Julian Graves

Julian Graves
Information Access Manager
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street
Manchester
M3 3AW

Tel. no: 0161 923 6351
Email: [email address]

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Dear Julian Graves (0161 923 6351),

23rd March 2007 onwards; complaints were made and shared by many professionals and civilians, it makes no sense to say you've received no compliants, it is in fact, bizarre in the extreme. We had receipts. What on earth do you mean?

Yours sincerely,

Liz R

Dear General Medical Council,

Hello? Just a PS. I did not file a complaints FORM, no. I did however speak to and email with Tim Cox Brown of the GMC, I cc'd professionals into it, on at least two occassions, and explained all the problems in exhausting detail at least twice, I was also in touch with mediator services who wouldn't complete this attempt to clarify matters, I had no wish to complaint, but wanted apology, I did receive an apology from the head of the PCT as they HAD seen I had my records mixed in with at least FOUR others (different ages []..so anything could have been treated wrongly etc, it cause monumental distress (still does) seeing my name next to a 12 year old and next to that of strangers who must have had my seen results by mistake? The apology came from Patricia Wright of KC PCT, Kensington and Chelsea Primary Care Trust.

Yours faithfully,

Liz R

FOI, General Medical Council

Dear Ms R

Thank you for your emails of 4 and 22 June 2011.

I acknowledge your comments and have saved the emails on record.

Yours sincerely

Sarah Leigh
Information Access Team Administrator
0161 923 6398
[email address]

General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street
Manchester
M3 3AW

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