Overseas doctor 'unlawfully killed' patient
David Gray was unlawfully killed by an overseas doctor
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By Matt Hallam. |  |
Thursday, 04, Feb 2010 03:36
By Alex Plough
A patient who was given a fatal overdose by an out-of-hours doctor was killed unlawfully, a coroner has ruled today.
Dr Daniel Ubani, a German national of Nigerian origin, was "incompetent and not of an acceptable standard" and the death of David Gray, 70, amounted to gross negligence and manslaughter, the coroner said.
Mr Gray died in February 2008 after the stand-in doctor administered ten times the recommended dose of the painkiller diamorphine during his first shift for the out-of-hours GP service provider, Take Care Now.
The coroner, William Morris, highlighted concerns about the quality of out-of-hours patient care and said that "weakness remain in the system".
The service was overhauled more than five years ago when responsibility was moved from local doctors to NHS bodies and private firms that employ a mixture of GPs, agency doctors and sometimes doctors from abroad.
Responding to the corner's findings, Mr Gray's son Rory said at a press conference today: "We cannot bring back our father, but if the lessons that have been learnt from this awful tragedy are acted upon in a constructive manner then at least in his legacy some good will have come from his tragic death."
Cambridgeshire police investigated the deaths of Mr Gray and Iris Edwards, another of Dr Ubani's patients, in February 2008. It was reported that police had decided to charge the 67-year-old doctor with manslaughter in relation to the death of Mr Gray.
A European arrest warrant was issued for Dr Ubani, however it emerged that legal proceedings had already started in Germany regarding the death.
After pleading guilty last April to a lesser charge of to causing death by negligence, the doctor was given a nine-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay a fine of ?5,000 (£4,370), because of this conviction he cannot now be charged in the UK.
The spokeswoman for the Crown Prosecutor Service, speaking to the Daily Telegraph, said: "We had completed the complex process of obtaining arrest warrants for Europe and are disappointed that any subsequent prosecution was not allowed to reach its natural conclusion in this country."
Christine Braithwaite, head of investigation and enforcement at the Care Quality Commission, the regulator of health and social care in England, added: "The death of David Gray was a tragedy. It should not have happened and such an incident must not happen again.
"The coroner has clearly highlighted what went wrong. Take Care Now, and the PCTs that commission its services, must learn the lessons."