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Dear J Roberts,

Your information request - IR1-2610622248

Thank you for your email dated 7 February, in which you ask for the below:

1.  Confirmation that Manish Shah, the doctor who received three life
sentences for committing 90 sexual assaults is the same doctor suspended
on 18 December 2019, Manish Natverlal Shah (4030108)

2.  If so all information surrounding the decision to suspend him

3. The date the GMC were first made aware of the Police investigating
Manish Shah

4. If the statement “the GMC will now always hold a tribunal when doctors
go to prison and call for doctors to be struck off in cases of sexual
offence.” Is correct, statistical information the GMC holds on the average
length of time it takes for a doctor to face a tribunal from the first day
they are imprisoned

5.  The number of tribunals held in (i) 2016/17 (ii) 2017/18 (iii) 2018/19
which concerned imprisoned doctors.  Additionally, please provide the
number of these convicts who were struck off the medical register

 

How we will consider your request

We’re going to consider your request under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA). The FOIA gives us 20 working days to respond, but we’ll come
back to you as soon as we can.

 

Who to contact

Matt McCoig-Lees will be handling your request. If you have any questions
you can call him on 0161 923 6579 or email him at
[1][email address].

 

Yours sincerely

 

Lauren Barrowcliffe
Information Access Team Assistant

 

[2][email address]

0161 240 8356

General Medical Council

3 Hardman Street

Manchester

M3 3AW

 

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Dear Mr Roberts

 

I write further to previous correspondence with a response under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.

 

I will respond to each question in turn.

 

1.  Can you confirm that Manish Shah, the doctor who received three life
sentences for committing 90 sexual assaults [is] the same doctor suspended
on 18 December 2019 (Manish Natverlal Shah GMC ref. no. 4030108)?

 

There is only one doctor on the GP register called Manish Shah. I confirm
therefore that they are one and the same person.

 

2.  If so, please provide all information surrounding the decision to
suspend him and 3. please provide the date you first became aware that the
police were investigating Manish Shah for sexual crimes?

 

I cannot answer these questions as it would breach data protection
legislation to do so.

 

We believe it’s reasonable for doctors and complainants to expect that
complaints will be treated as confidential. If a case progresses to a
hearing, or an investigation concludes with a warning or undertakings,
certain information may be made publicly available by the GMC, in line
with our publication and disclosure policy for fitness to practise
information. Otherwise the information is treated as the confidential
personal data of the doctor and other parties involved. I’ve given details
of the exemption under the FOIA which applies below.

 

The exemption

 

Section 40(2), by virtue of section 40(3A)(a)

 

This exemption applies where the information is the personal data of a
third party and where releasing the information would breach any of the
principles relating to the processing of personal data listed at Article 5
of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In this instance
disclosure would breach the first principle, which requires the processing
of information to be lawful, fair and transparent. I do not believe that
any of the legal bases for processing listed at Article 6 of the GDPR are
met and therefore giving you the information would be unlawful.

 

4. I have read that “the GMC will now always hold a tribunal when doctors
go to prison and call for doctors to be struck off in cases of sexual
offence.”

 

If this statement is correct, please provide what statistical information
you hold on the average length of time it takes for a doctor to face a
tribunal from the first day they are locked up.

 

A raft of reforms were introduced by new rules in 2004 following
recommendations by the Shipman Inquiry. This changed the way we
investigate concerns. Under those rules, specifically Rule 5(1), any
doctor who receives a custodial sentence, whether immediate or suspended,
must be automatically referred to the tribunal, and for serious
convictions such as serious sexual offences, we will now always seek
erasure from the register for the doctor in question. I should also
explain that it is almost always the case that we are aware of doctors who
have been charged with an offence before they go to trial and our
investigations therefore frequently have been open for some time before a
doctor is sentenced.

 

For the purposes of this response, I have assumed that the sentence begins
on the date it is handed down. Instances where we know that a doctor
subsequently appealed and either had the conviction quashed or the
sentence reduced to a non-custodial penalty have been removed from the
data, as has a case where a doctor was seeking restoration to the
register. The average length of time taken from a doctor receiving a
non-suspended custodial sentence to the first day of a Medical
Practitioners Tribunal between March 2016 to April 2019 using the median
method is 192 days. The sample size is relatively small and the average
has been skewed by some complications which occurred in a handful of
cases. I should add that if we think that restrictions need to be placed
on a doctor’s registration while we investigate concerns, we’ll refer the
doctor to an [1]interim orders tribunal at the Medical Practitioners
Tribunal Service (MPTS). This can happen at any point during our
investigation.

 

5.  Please provide the number of tribunals held in (i) 2016/17 (ii)
2017/18 (iii) 2018/19 which concerned imprisoned doctors.  Additionally,
please provide the number of these convicts who were struck off the
medical register. 

 

There have been 23 tribunals held concerning doctors who received a
non-suspended custodial sentence between March 2016 and April 2019. In 20
cases, the doctor was erased and in the remaining three cases the doctor
was suspended from the medical register.

 

I hope you find this helpful.

 

---

Kind Regards

 

Matt

 

Matthew McCoig-Lees

Information Access Officer

Information Access Team

General Medical Council

3 Hardman Street

Manchester

M3 3AW

Email: [email address]

Website: www.gmc-uk.org

Tel: 0161 923 6579

 

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