Medical Discipline Record

United Kingdom ยท General practitioner, Hyde, Greater Manchester

Harold Shipman: medical regulator decision

Decision, 11 February 2000Struck off the medical register by the GMC on 11 February 2000 after being found guilty of serious professional misconduct, according to The Irish Times, which reported the decision the following day. The Gosport Independent Panel report states that the GMC's Professional Conduct Committee erased his name from the medical register.3,2

General Medical Council (GMC), Professional Conduct Committee

What the panel found

The Irish Times reported that the GMC found him guilty of serious professional misconduct, struck him off and banned him from practising as a doctor, and that the Professional Conduct Committee suspended him with immediate effect.2

Related criminal case

Found guilty at Preston Crown Court on 31 January 2000 of 15 charges of murder and of forging the will of one of his patients, as stated to the House of Commons by the Secretary of State for Health on 1 February 2000. He received 15 life sentences, according to the Gosport Independent Panel report.1,3,2

Response

The sources read do not record a response from him to the GMC proceedings.

Appeal and later events

No appeal against the erasure is recorded in the sources read.

Status now

Erased from the medical register in February 2000. He was found dead in his cell at Wakefield prison on 13 January 2004, according to the BMJ and Al Jazeera.2,4,5

This site covers only doctors whose cases were widely reported and decided in published rulings. Each record states the decision exactly as the body made it, and any appeal or later change.

Sources

  1. UK Parliament, Hansard, Harold Shipman, HC Deb 01 February 2000 vol 343 cc907 to 919 (1 February 2000)
  2. The Irish Times, Shipman struck off by GMC (12 February 2000)
  3. Gosport Independent Panel (UK Government), Report of the Gosport Independent Panel, Part one, Chapter one
  4. The BMJ (Trevor Jackson and Richard Smith), BMJ 2004 328 231, Harold Shipman (24 January 2004)
  5. Al Jazeera, Dr Death dies in prison (13 January 2004)