A SQUABBLE between three family doctors could result in their Camden surgery – and its list of around 6,500 patients – being split in two, the High Court heard yesterday (Wednesday).
Judge Warren heard how Dr Marian Latchman was forced out of the Regent’s Park Medical Centre in January after colleagues discovered that she had complained to the General Medical Council that fellow partner Dr Christine Pickard was clinically incompetent.
Dr Latchman told the court: “I think she’s no longer sound.” Despite these hostilities, Dr Latchman, currently working as a locum in West Sussex, wants the court to order the other two doctors to let her back in the Cumberland Market surgery to see her patients.
But her idea of effectively splitting the practice in two was dismissed as “absurd” and “unworkable” by Robert Pearce, representing Dr Pickard and Dr Chandok, who are both still practising at the surgery and now claiming Dr Latchman’s share of NHS funding.
Judge Warren will give his decision today (Thursday), but whatever arrangement he orders would be in place for just 20 weeks as the Primary Care Trust (PCT) has told all three doctors their contracts will be terminated at the end of September.
Dr Latchman argued that both her and her patients were suffering “irreparable damage” as a result of her ex-partner’s actions, which she claims are illegal. She said: “Many patients are extremely distressed. The majority of our patients are disadvantaged.”
She continued that her patients – many of whom are refugees speaking English as a second language – would stay away rather than repeat their history to a locum. “They need to know that their doctor knows they have been raped, they need to know that their doctor knows their father was shot in front of them, or that their wife is still in a refugee camp,” she said.
She also said that she would be at an unfair disadvantage when she competed against Dr Pickard and Dr Chandok for full control of the surgery later this year, as she was “out of the loop”.
But Mr Pearce rejected this. He argued that as long as all patients registered at the practice were being cared for, then Dr Latchman had no legal claim to visit the premises except to sort out the ending of the partnership, pointing out that Dr Pickard owns the headlease on the premises.
Speaking after the hearing, Dr Pickard insisted she was fit to practise and that Dr Latchman made baseless complaints to get back at her after the two fell out. Dr Chandok said he would not work with her if he did not think she was fit to practise.
Referring to her decision to complain, Dr Latchman said: “I was just doing my duty.”