• Stoke
• misconduct
• investigation

So is it all over now, bar the shouting? Paediatricians in the UK have watched, with mixed emotions, the tale of how two senior colleagues at the North Staffordshire Hospital in Stoke on Trent were pilloried and abused by the media over an eight year period.¹ Pilloried largely because they dared to become involved in the investigation of children thought to have suffered induced illness at the hands of those who cared for them. They have also watched in uneasy silence, uncertain of where the truth lay, and fearful that, by saying anything, they might make matters worse.

The local hospital Trust eventually suspended Dr Martin Samuels and Professor David Southall from duty, without warning, on 29 November 1999 because of “potentially serious, albeit unsubstantiated, allegations concerning child protection and research issues at the hospital”² after media frenzy reached an all time high. Dr Samuels finally returned to work 20 months later after the Trust's “preliminary enquiry” found “no professional misconduct or incompetence”.³ The Trust announced a similar conclusion in respect of Professor Southall in mid October⁴ after a suspension lasting 23 months—a suspension that the Trust always stressed was “not a disciplinary action.”

Many will criticise the way this whole affair has been handled. The public has still not been offered any real explanation for the suspensions, or for the reinstatements. That is not the British way—and reasonably so. However, while people do not expect or want the details of every employment contract debated in public there are occasions, as here, where the outcome leaves nobody satisfied. Indeed, many will still feel that “there must have been something going on”. Why else, they might ask, would the Government, the NHS Executive and the local Trust have spent so much time and effort investigating these things. …