Ground 2 for my removal from the board of the General Chiropractic Council :
I have put recent relevant remarks in red
I am accused of acting contrary to the best interests of Council. The GCC statutory duty is to balance protecting the public with the interests of the chiropractic profession. To achieve that goal is why I became a member of council. The evidence will show that it is Peter Dixon’s chairing of council that has brought the GCC into disrepute and undermined the profession’s confidence in council and that view is supported by the fact he polled the lowest number of votes in England and was very fortunate to be re-elected.
The fact that I have had to go to the extreme of drawing an extraordinary council meeting with a resolution to remove me from council to facilitate the airing of genuine concerns to council members, raises the question whether the GCC is “fit for purpose” and whether the chiropractic profession is able to regulate itself competently. The fact is Chiropractors on the GCC board are not able to operate as a homogenous profession and the divisions are always simmering away beneath the surface and these differences are prioritised before the GCCs statutory duty to promote the profession and protect the public.
As a result of these divisions the GCC gets away with paying only lip service to its principal stakeholders focusing instead on CHRE, managing to convince them of the great job they are doing, by processing streams of obviously vexatious cases against chiropractors. The chiropractic profession has the questionable honour of having the highest number of complaints ratio to registrants of any regulatory body.
How ironic then on Friday that within an hour of council members receiving my e-mail describing how Peter was trying to prejudice this hearing in his favour, council members received an e-mail from Margaret stating “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that our CHRE performance review meeting today went really well, we met all the requirements and exceeded them in some cases.” The CHRE instructs regulators to cooperate with each other. One can only wonder what they will make of the fact that a former employee who the GCC had to report to the police is investigating complaints for another regulatory body because the GCC has kept it confidential. (The CHRE have “noted” it and it has been “put on file”)
In 2002 I was an expert in one of the first cases to come before the PCC. It was obvious this was going to be a cash cow for experts and lawyers and would bleed the profession financially.
Questions were being asked about Mr Greg Price’s ( GCC executive officer who sometimes acted as Registrar for the GCC) role in the regulatory process as early as this hearing. However it was not until 2006 that we became aware to the extent of his subterfuge and how he was acting against the interests of the chiropractic profession. Here is a person who has disparaged a large percentage of UK registered chiropractors and their places of education on anti-chiropractic websites while at the same time acting as executive officer to the body regulating the chiropractic profession. While Christian Farthings case was going on he was posting messages about him on the internet, this happened in number of other cases as well.
On 7 February 2001 Greg Price contributed to drafting a statutory declaration from Mrs Coats setting out breaches of the code of practice by a chiropractor, before putting the declaration before the Investigating Committee for their consideration. Price then also sat as administrative officer to the Investigating Committee taking the minutes of the meeting. As Margaret was also the complainant in this case, Mr Price stepped into her shoes and managed the administrative functions of the registrar despite the fact that he himself had begun the complaint and contributed to the statutory declaration. In his testimony at the hearing Price saw no conflict of interest.
According to the GCC’s own rules, Chiropractors are entitled to obtain impartial guidance on matters relating to conduct and practice from the registrar. Price refused an adjournment by letter dated 6 June 2001, saying that he had determined by himself that the hearing would not be postponed. The PCC, not being aware, of course, of Price’s subsequent internet activities, rejected any suggestion of possible bias and a need for an investigation.
In its disciplinary procedure the GCC has defined the role of the Chief Executive & Registrar and other managers as being “to establish and maintain standards of conduct and performance” yet despite a mountain of evidence against him the chairman Peter Dixon and Chief executive Margaret Coats are still denying the magnitude of Price’s wrong doing. It is as if the fact that the police were unable to find enough evidence to warrant criminal proceedings against Mr Price, which made everything all right as far as GCC management were concerned. Why did the police find no evidence?
As council members know on 31st January 2008, I e-mailed Margaret Coats and copied it to Peter Dixon asking “Can you tell me if you were questioned by police in 2007 about allegations that were made against Greg Price”
Margaret responded by saying “I would be grateful if you will explain the purpose of your question.”
I stated that “I have been informed that police were told among other things that Greg Price solicited money from respondents to make complaints go away. Other council members have no knowledge of a police investigation involving GCC members of staff and in the light of current events I think council members should know if you were questioned by police about Greg Price and council business”.
Margaret copied this to the Chairman, for him to respond.
Peter stated in a letter of the same date “Margaret has brought this enquiry to my attention and I can assure you that no member of staff at the GCC has been interviewed by the police relating to this matter. I hope this clarifies this issue.”
During the first break of the council meeting on 6th February, I showed Peter the police report by DS Mark Chard from September 2007, explaining their reasons for not pursuing a criminal action against Mr Price. DS Chard stated “The GCC themselves state that Mr Price role was not much more than admin. He was a support for Solicitors, employed by the GCC. It was solicitors who carried out the investigations. He was not involved in the decision making process”. I have sent DS Chard a copy of this correspondence and evidence showing that Mr Price was not merely admin and in situations where Margaret was acting as complainant Price assumed the duties of the registrar.
After reading DS Chard’s statement Peter told me that he had no knowledge of any police investigation into Price and specifically said Margaret had not informed him of any investigation, later retracting that statement during the meeting, but not explaining why he had denied that an investigation had taken place and why he had failed to inform council members of the potential risk.
All this should have been dealt with properly when the evidence of malfeasance surfaced after the GCC had spent £62,000 on solicitors Addleshaw Goddard to act on behalf of Margaret Coats and Greg Price in relation to defamation allegations, this investigation yielded one person posting and the only action available to the chief executive was to make Chiropractor Richard Southam visit her office, no further action was taken.
As a result of Addleshaw Goddard’s involvement, I found out that postings were being made on the chiropractic-uk website from the GCC server and reported it to Addelshaw Goddard. Document P shows that on 13th March 2006 notice was given to Greg Price of a disciplinary hearing for breaches in GCC IT policy and for making derogatory statements about me.
Margaret stated in that notice that “ It has also come to my attention that postings have been made on two other websites in the name ”Cognitio”.” (this information was presumably provided by Dana Green). Margaret goes on to say “I have not assumed this to be you” but would welcome comments at the hearing.
Margaret provided Greg Price with copies of all Cognitio’s postings. She also enclosed notes of an interview made by a Brendan Russel with Greg Price in relation to the chiropractic-uk website. The letter finishes stating “that gross misconduct may result in dismissal without notice”.
In response to this we have document K where Greg Price states
- I did post some messages on the Stop Rondberg and Chiro skeptical websites
- I cannot recall whether any of the messages were posted from the GCC offices
- I cannot recall having posted on any other websites
- There is at least one other person using the name cognitio
Rather than sacking Price for gross misconduct he was allowed to submit his resignation admitting that his conduct made his position untenable and took up employment at another regulatory body UKCP. One assumes at this point GCC management thought the extent of Price’s posting activity had been contained. However there seemed to be one question unanswered.
Who was the other cognitio, that Price was referring to, the only other website which he did not admit to posting on was the chiropractic-uk website and we know a cognitio posted 25 times on the site from a GCC server. Remember only one person can use a display name on a website and Margaret seems to be raising the possibility in the draft minutes that someone else using the pseudonym cognitio and may have done the postings on the chiropractic uk website from the GCC.
On 5th May 2006 Council Members will have received a copy of a letter that I had sent to DOH and the Privy Council stating “a person using the pseudonym “Cognitio” has made many postings on a number of anti-chiropractic websites promoting the work of the GCC in the UK. I believe this person to be Greg Price until recently an executive officer of the GCC. Price was recruited by Ms Margaret Coates and according to his testimony to the PCC in May 2002, he would surf the internet and refer chiropractic material he was concerned about to Ms Coates.” Ms Coats would later claim that Price never informed her of his rather innovative method of promoting the GCC internationally.
In this letter to the DOH, I charge the GCC with a failure to regulate as required by the Chiropractic Act, in relation to a complaint I had made in 2002 regarding a chiropractor’s attempt to coerce £2,000 from a young woman with a stiff neck. I provided the patients details to the GCC nevertheless she was never contacted.
Having then receiving a reminder of this old complaint with this letter, again failed to investigate, in fact it was only after being elected onto council that I was able to get Peter and Margaret to look into the complaint.
On 19th December 2007 Peter Dixon wrote I have now conducted a thorough investigation into this matter, he quoted section 4.2 of the code of practice which requires “chiropractors to report to the registrar any concerns they may have about the conduct of another chiropractor, having first made an honest attempt to verify the facts upon which their concerns are based and to provide evidence as to what steps you had taken.” Apparently I had not done this.
In his investigation, Peter did not notice that the Registrar had stated on 7th August 2007 that the complaint had never been brought to her attention by Mr Price. Notwithstanding my having sent it to the GCC, Margaret claimed never to have seen the complaint as a means of explaining why she herself did not become the complainant as one would expect the registrar to become in this situation. Margaret also stated, “had you complained in 2002 rather than in 2007 about the handling of your complaint it would have been possible for me as Mr Price’s then line manager to have investigated the matter.”
A GCC publication from 2007 “Working together” states The GCC must by law investigate all complaints about chiropractors; No ifs or buts there, they have to investigate period. In July 2005 Margaret wrote to Rod McMillan stating that the Investigating Committee asks its clerk to obtain information and that it is not within the discretion of Mr Price as the clerk to the IC to identify the information to be sought. Yet it was Mr Price who wrote on the top of my complaint not to be sent to the Investigating Committee because he, Mr Price, had concerns as to how I had acquired the information.
He did not consult with the Registrar, he alone made the decision not to pass my complaint on to the Investigation committee. It was for the Investigating Committee to raise any concerns they may or may not have in relation to a complaint and instruct Price to get the information. Mr Price, as apparently he did quite often, preempted that process and made the decision himself without consulting anyone according to Ms Coats.
In January 2006, I contacted the GCC with FOI request after a similar case had resulted in a suspension. Greg Price’s explanation was “you failed to respond to correspondence from the GCC and in particular to clarify whether information you had disclosed in respect to a patient had been disclosed lawfully. As a result, the Investigating Committee was unable to take matters further. In the letter I sent to the DOH and council members I clearly state that I did respond after returning from a trip to Cuba telling Price that the patient was happy to co-operate with a GCC investigation and make a statement and provided contact details for the patient.
I asked Price again for an explanation of this decision under FOI and was informed IC deliberations are not available under Freedom of Information Act. However I now know the IC had never seen the complaint in the first instance.
Then on 2nd August 2007 having completed her investigation, Margaret stated “You have not provided any evidence that Mr Price lied in a response to a FOI request from you”, which quite frankly stunned me when it is clearly stated in the response that the IC could not take the matter further.
The fact is this is a clear example of the GCC failing in their statutory duty to protect the public to at the very least investigate the allegation against the chiropractor. Peter’s Dixons investigation was merely a parroting of Margaret Coats’s findings concluding with the suggestion that If after five years you wish to pursue the original complaint then please do so by providing the information requested to the office within 28 days. Here you have a situation where they are both aware that the code of practice has been broken and that a member of the public needs protecting and they do nothing.
Margaret stated on July 27th 2007 that she did not become the complainant in this case because “I do not recall that this matter was drawn to my attention in 2002 nor are their file notes to indicate whether it was”. In June 2007 in response to another FOIA request, Margaret stated that in the public interest the registrar should become the complainant. Regardless of the source of the informants wishes the GCC has a duty to act whenever it is in possession of information that suggests a registrant may be guilty of UPC. Meanwhile Peter is saying it is now down to me to make the complaint within 28 days. Perhaps Peter was not aware of this or that Margaret has acted as complainant at least 12 times.
The fact is that they still have not tried to contact the patient and in my view this a gross dereliction of duty and due diligence that the public is entitled to expect from the GCC.
