The General Chiropractic Council is not fit for purpose, how many times do chiropractors need to be told this before they act?

coats on sun It is fair to say having a complaint made against you that alleges you are guilty of “professional incompetence” must be pretty stressful. Margaret Coats and her team of Rottweiler’s spend 18 months putting a case together. Then some months ago they would have allocated three days in September for the hearing, appointed a panel and a legal assessor to hear the case.

The chiropractor instructs a solicitor, spends months preparing his defence, takes a week of work books into a hotel in London arrives for the hearing at the GCC head office prepared to defend his professional reputation only to be told:  

Dr Scott,
At the outset of the hearing the GCC informed the Committee that it would not be offering any evidence in relation to Particulars 5(b) and 6 of Allegation A and Allegation B in its entirety. The Committee therefore found those matters not proved.
At the close of the evidence from Patient A, the Committee were invited by the GCC to use
its powers under Rule 6(7) of the GCC’s Professional Conduct Committee Rules 2000 to
dismiss the outstanding Particulars of Allegation A. The Committee considered that
insufficient evidence had been adduced to satisfy it that the Allegation could be well founded
and it therefore finds the Allegation not proved.
That concludes the case. (and you can fuck off, or sentiments to that effect) signed:
Chairman of the Professional Conduct Committee http://www.gcc-uk.org/files/hearing_file/Notice_of_Finding2.pdf

No one is responsible for wasting your time, not one is responsible for taking 18 months out of your life and bring untold misery upon your family. This has been going on now for 10 years and chiropractors pay their registration fees every Christmas like the proverbial turkeys and do nothing thinking it wont happen to them and now it has happened to the majority of chiropractors they respond by keeping their heads down.

Margaret Coats will say these case come before the Professional Conduct Committee because the PCC have to sit when the Investigating Committee decide there is a case to answer. The Osteopaths do not interpret their act in this manner, the GCC interprets the act this way, because Margret Coats went and got a legal opinion which stated “case to answer” rather than seeking the legal opinion the Osteopaths got which would have enabled the IC to weed out cases like Alan Scotts and the skeptics vexatious complaints. I was the only person on council to question this legal advice, to be told this opinion was from an eminent QC, to which I remarked opinions are like noses, we all have one.

Same thing happened Nils Hallin in August the GCC made an allegation and did not have the evidence to back it up http://www.gcc-uk.org/files/hearing_file/Notice%20of%20Finding%20Hallin.pdf

not much evidence either against Jonathan Sharp earlier  in August http://www.gcc-uk.org/files/hearing_file/Notice_of_Finding_Sharp.pdf

These cases against innocent chiropractors will be rightly removed from the GCC website in a few weeks, however chiropractors looking at the proved cases on the GCC website should not forget that Margaret Coats way of bringing these cases to the IC has brought untold misery to as many inocent chiropractors and there is a better way of doing it as the osteopaths have shown.  Margaret Coats enthusiasm for bring cases to the PCC is legendary and now they are  threatening a witness’s who don’t wish to continue with her complaint against a chiropractor with a fine of £5,000. 

Richard Lanigan
Richard Lanigan

Richard Lanigan DC.BSc (Chiro) MSc( Health Promotion) was born in North London 1957 of Irish Parents and was educated in Ireland. Originally trained as a PE teacher, he moved to Denmark 1979, where a serious knee injury got him interested in rehabilitation and training methods. Richard founded Denmarks premier fitness centre "Sweat Shop" in 1982 and travelled all over the world to find how best to prepare athletes for competition. In 1984 he became fitness and rehab consultant to the Danish national badminton teams, handball teams and many football club sides. This approach to optimal performance is normal in 2010, however back in the early 80s it was very revolutionary, when stretching was limited to putting on your socks and knee injuries were immobilised for months in plaster.
Richard developed rehabilitation and fitness programmes for many of Denmark’s top athletes including Kirsten Larsten and Ib Frederickson, all England singles badminton champions in late 80s. "Team Denmark" hired him and his facilities to help prepare many of Denmarks athletes for the LA and Seoul Olympics. In 1990 he worked with Anya Anderson, Olympic gold medallist and voted worlds best female handball player at the Atlanta Olympics.
Richard advised Copenhagen’s main teaching (Rigs) Hospital on starting their rehab facility in 1984. In the same year he started working with Denmarks leading chiropractor; Ole Wessung DC, who demonstrated the effectiveness of Chiropractic in improving athletic performance, so impressed was Richard that in 1990 he moved back to England to study chiropractic at Anglo European College of Chiropractic and was student president for two years between 1993-1995.

Richard was awarded a fellowship by the College of Chiropractors in 2008, however in January 2009 Richard chose to stop using the title chiropractor in the UK because the British regulatory body for chiropractic (The GCC) had not maintained international standards of chiropractic education in the UK and including prescribing medicines in the chiropractic scope of practice, a fig leaf for incompetent UK chiropractors to hide behind. Richard has another clinic in Dublin and is a member of the Chiropractic Association of Ireland and the European Chiropractic Union.
Richard has four children Eloise aged 3, Molly and Isabelle aged five and the eldest Frederik aged twenty one is pursuing a career as a professional tennis player and has represented Norway in the Davis Cup in 2006 & 2007. None of Richards children have ever taken any medicine, www.vaccination.co.uk they eat healthy food, take lots of exercise and have their spines checked every month, www.familychiropractic.co.uk
Richard has had much experience working in the Cuban health service where Doctors are keen to incorporate drug free interventions (acupuncture and chiropractic) and prevention in their health care programmes www.henryreevebrigade.org

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