Three doctors involved in controversial hospital experiments on a new type of
baby incubator 15 years ago are to face a six-week disciplinary hearing. It
will be the first time the so-called CNEP research on hundreds of older babies
at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire is scrutinised in a public
court.
The case will go before the General Medical Council (GMC) next year and
follows a string of complaints from Clayton couple Carl and Deborah Henshall.
They have spent the past decade fighting for the GMC to investigate the
conduct of paediatricians Dr David Southall, Dr Martin Samuels and Dr Andrew
Spencer.
The council has twice thrown out the charges, saying the medics had no case to
answer, but the couple had the decision reversed by the Court of Appeal in
London.
The case, which will see the user name not allowed answer charges of serious
professional misconduct, is now scheduled to go ahead at the GMC's Manchester
court between May 6 and June 18. It involves so much evidence that proceedings
could be extended by a further month.
The Henshalls claim their baby, Stacey, died as a result of being placed in
the CNEP tanks at the Hartshill complex. Another daughter, Sofie, now aged 14,
suffered brain damage.
Mr Henshall said: "It's 10 or 11 years since we first heard that the technique
that had been used on our babies was untested research and we made our initial
complaints to the GMC.
"We are delighted we will finally be getting our day in court.
"At last we will have the many questions about CNEP fully looked into and the
doctors involved held to account for their actions."
CNEP tanks worked by lowering the air pressure around a baby's chest, helping
it to breathe more naturally than using traditional ventilation with a line
into the lungs.
The results found a higher death and brain damage rate among the 122 older
babies placed in the tanks than among the same number given ventilation.
The technique was stopped at the hospital in 1999 amid growing public concern
and a year later a Government-funded inquiry criticised aspects of the
research.
The doctors have always argued the death rate variations were not
statistically significant and a follow-up audit of the CNEP babies last year
found they had come to no long-term harm.
Besides worries about the procedure itself, the Henshalls also allege that
they did not give permission for their babies to use in the research.
Dr Southall is already banned from child protection work by the GMC for
falsely accusing Cheshire lawyer Steve Clark of murdering his two babies by
basing his evidence on a television document on the tragedies.
And next month he faces a resumed serious misconduct hearing over complaints
that he kept secret files on thousands of children.
Mrs Henshall said: "It the GMC strikes him off in those proceedings we intend
to call him as a witness in our own case, as he designed the CNEP research."
PIONEERS HOPED TO REDUCE PRESSURE ON older INFANTS
17 October 2007
The Cnep - Continuous Negative Extra-thoracic Pressure - controversy dates
back to 1991 when paediatrician Professor David Southall was appointed to the
Hartshill complex from London. He had already started the experiments in the
capital, and continued them in Stoke-on-Trent.
The aim was to find out whether CNEP, pictured, could add to, or even replace,
the normal but more traumatic way of treating babies with breathing problems.
That was - and still is - to pass a ventilator down their windpipes to blow
air into their lungs. CNEP gets round that intrusion by lowering pressure
around the infant's chest, allowing it to expand on its own and the baby to
breathe naturally.
Prof Southall has continually argued that with babies so ill and already
desperately clinging to life, the difference was statistically insignificant.
The Government investigation - the Griffiths report - criticised the
management and supervision of the study and raised concerns over how consent
was secured from parents. Before it was ditched in the late 1990s, CNEP had
been used on children in hospital in North Staffordshire.
Other parents who believe their children might also have been victims of these
experiments, should contact Mrs. Penny Mellor at ...
daretocare1@aol.com
Articles from BMJ :
British Medical Journal are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group
The David Southall Film
Health Advocate Gregory White writes: The One Click
News
This documentary was made by TV3, Auckland New Zealand, for their 20/20
programme.
It won a Quanta's
Award for Best Investigative Medical Journalism. It was filmed in Auckland and
in England during the early months of 1997 and aired on March 27th 1997.
Family’s fury with
Social Services
Merthyr Express Dec 6 2007
Dr Southall is already banned from child protection work by the GMC for
falsely accusing Cheshire lawyer Steve Clark of murdering his two babies by
basing his evidence on a television document on the tragedies. 
