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Representation matters

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01 October 2009 / William Childs , Ian Sadler
Issue: 7387 / Categories: Features , Regulatory , Professional negligence , Employment
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Ian Sadler & William Childs examine the right to legal representation at disciplinary proceedings

The decision in Kulkarni v Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Foundation Trust [2009] EWCA CIV 789, [2009] All ER (D) 248 (Jul) represented a significant development in the law relating to doctors and dentists facing disciplinary proceedings within the NHS. However, practitioners will also be interested in its application in cases involving all employees of public bodies or near monopoly employers faced with potentially career threatening disciplinary action.

Dr Kulkarni was a junior doctor facing potentially serious allegations of professional misconduct in the course of his medical practice while employed by the respondent NHS trust.

Through the Medical Protection Society, his medical defence organisation, he sought to bring a legal representative to the proposed disciplinary hearing. The trust refused his application, relying upon an express term of its contractual disciplinary procedure excluding the right to legal representation.

The disciplinary procedures

In 2005 new pan-NHS disciplinary procedures were introduced. Before this time, doctors and dentists enjoyed the express contractual

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