Do No Harm.

“Primum non nocerum. (First do no harm)”
― Hippocrates

Doctor Philip Johnson is our least favourite medical practitioner.  Single-handedly this man is making the nefarious agenda of the HR department (well, their business manager Wood and her underling Jones) a reality. A gynaecologist by trade, he thinks the case law of the Regulations allows him to have access to the medical records of private citizens since birth. It does no such thing. When he is asked to do his part of a review of a police injury pension he is only entitled to decide whether there has been any alteration in an individual’s degree of disablement since the last time that was decided. Delving into medical records which pre-date that decision is not permitted. It is an abuse of the Police (Injury Benefit) Regulations 2006 and an abuse of his profession.

As far as knowing the law is concerned, the not-so-good doctor Johnson falls short. What he is rather better at is knowing how to behave in a way which has forced mentally ill former officers to seek help from their crisis teams after seeing him. What sort of a doctor is it who carelessly damages the health of a patient?

Johnson has declined, or is unable to make a decision in any of the reviews he has conducted so far. He then takes great delight in trying to blame that state of affairs on the disabled former officers who have, quite rightly, raised concerns about his blunders. This man is a champion of the art of procrastination and a leader in the field of shifting blame. He desperately wants to earn his fee by doing what his paymasters require -which is to manipulate the review process so as to reduce pension payments, yet he he wants to do this with no stain on his character and no possibility of being in the firing line when there comes the inevitable run of cases in the Administrative Court over maladministration of injury pensions.

The tenet of ‘first do no harm’ means only one thing to doctor Johnson – do no harm to oneself and stuff the rest of you.

And you may well ask ‘where is your evidence to make so bold a statement about the ‘good’ doctor?  There is the fact that there are recorded transcripts of  reviews where Dr Johnson is heard stating that he can see no change and that the condition is obviously no better.  But this train of thought is lost when he makes his first report back to HR.  Rather janus-faced, he now insinuates in the report to his paymasters that there may perhaps be change and its up to the HR department to decide how much.  Or how-about the letter Dr Johnson wrote after a review saying there is no change and then 2 weeks later sending a follow-up report, stating in fact there maybe some change, and he needs now to have job profiles to see how much.  The inference is perhaps that Dr Johnson wants to defer the ultimate decision to his bosses in HR and if they aren’t happy with his first view then that view has to change to become the view of HR.   Or last but not least, the classic letter where Dr Johnson says he can’t make a decision and writes as such to both the former officer and HR.  But then still HR claims that its not as though Dr Johnson has decided not to give a decision, it’s just that Dr Johnson has decided to not decide to give a decision.  All these transcripts and letters exist.

Remember these ‘professionals’ are dealing with former officers, injured on duty and with severe disablement to their earning capacity AND who has had no contact from said force for over 12 years.

“Dr Wallington, I presume”

Dr Johnson isn’t alone in his willingness to apply his own tough love to those unfortunate to be in receipt of an IOD award.  Dr Cheng, the resident Met SMP, is of the circular view (and Joseph Heller of Catch-22 fame would grudgingly admire Dr Cheng’s logic) that a band four IOD award is an oxymoron, as to get a band four the former officer should be so debilitated that they shouldn’t even have the capacity to apply for an IOD award in the first place.

Then there is the infamous Dr Broome  of Northumbria.  He who reduced 75 former officers on higher bands to band 1 in a single afternoon.  He is still in post despite all the case-law that names him.

Dr Nightingale is an ubiquitous SMP who seems to focus her work around the Midlands.  She quite often sees herself as an all-powerful judicial authority and demands responses by 16:12 hours exactly or she will record non-compliance in a rather Borg like manner.  This doctor is often mentioned in Pension Ombudsman findings.

And to end the post, I’ll mention Dr Wallington.  Remember NAMF?  Well Dr Wallington is the head of the police medical appeals board (PMAB).  He has overseen more PMABs than anyone in recent times

34242.pdf

This is an HTML version of an attachment to the Freedom of Information request ‘ Police Medical Appeal Board’.

No. of Boards sat on 
from 01/01/2013 – 
Doctor 
GMC Number 
01/01/2015 
Dr David Wallington
2311212
64
Dr Lanre Ogunyemi
4571061
25
Dr Daphne Pereira
1625857
58
Dr Ian Lambert
2271118
12
Dr Prassana Krishnan
4186951
34
Dr Rosemary Waddy
1462942
7
Mr Anthony Robinson
2493684
1
Dr Adil El-Nujumi
3388422
1
Dr Paul Holmes
3604397
1
Mr John Plewes
666422
6
Dr Karim Rajput
4184289
27
Dr John Nehaul
1380264
5
Dr Abdel Salih
3448908
9
Mr Michael Smith
1467693
65
Dr Mark Groom
3124949
26
Dr Michael Forbes
1469217
7
Dr Philip Steller
1582994
9

5.  Please indicate ANY member of the listed PMAB members (lay or medical) who have
attended ANY NAMF (National Attendance Management Forum) meeting in the past three
calenders years to date (that is 2012, 2013, 2014).

Dr David Wallington 

So why does the lead of an independent appeals board attend NAMF meetings?  Is it to ‘first do no harm’?  Or to see how much harm can be done.