THE NHS has done too little to protect patients against another Harold Shipman, according to the President of the General Medical Council.

Sir Graeme Catto said that to prevent the emergence of another killer GP such as Shipman, or a poorly performing surgeon such as Rodney Ledward, the gynaecologist, the NHS at local level had to take responsibility.

“We should insist that the local systems are much more robust,” Sir Graeme told the Northern Echo. “The trusts have a real responsibility here to ensure that the people they employ or contract with behave in a reasonable way. Sometimes that conflicts with getting waiting lists down because they don’t want to attack a particular doctor because they are difficult to replace.”

Sir Graeme made the same point in a speech last month in Edinburgh, when it appeared that the GMC was being made a scapegoat for failings that went undetected or uncorrected for years by the NHS.

Dame Janet Smith’s fifth report into Shipman, who killed hundreds of his patients, concluded that the GMC failed in its primary task of looking after patients because it was too involved in protecting doctors.

But Shipman had never been referred to the GMC for his murder spree, because it went undetected. He had been referred for drug addiction early in his career, for which the GMC took appropriate action.

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