The process that allowed a neurologist at the centre of Northern Ireland’s biggest patient recall to remove himself from the medical register voluntarily was an unlawful “exercise in corner cutting,” a High Court judge has ruled.
At the High Court in Belfast last month Mr Justice McAlinden quashed the decision of a medical practitioners tribunal (MPT) to grant Michael Watt voluntary erasure (VE) from the register. The judge concluded that the tribunal had no jurisdiction to hear the case but deferred his full reasons until later.
Delivering his full judgment on 17 April, he said, “The entire process of fixing a hearing to determine VE before any (further) VE application was made was a device, or an exercise in corner cutting that the MPT had no power to …