NMC v Duthie
Barbara Hewson instructed by Julie Cornes of Maxwell Gillott acted for Julia Duthie in the final stage of a marathon fitness to practice investigation, ongoing since 2007. Ms Duthie, a very senior and experienced midwife, was first referred to the NMC by her LSA, after a stillbirth during a home breech birth.
In 2011, a Conduct & Competence Committee of the NMC found Ms Duthie’s fitness to practice was impaired, and recommended that she be struck off.
Barbara and Maxwell Gillott represented Ms Duthie in her successful appeal to the High Court in 2012.
Irwin J. found that the Committee had got the evidence wrong, and quashed findings on two serious charges which you can view in the judgment.
Irwin J. remitted the case back to a fresh panel, to consider impairment in respect of four remaining charges.
Yesterday, 14 November, a fresh panel concluded that Ms Duthie’s fitness to practice was not impaired, after a three-day hearing. Ms Duthie is now free to practice without restriction. The panel accepted evidence from an Emeritus Professor of Midwifery that a plan of care written by a supervisor, without involving Ms Duthie’s client, had introduced a “mechanism of coercion.”
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