GP struck off after conviction

GP struck off after conviction

5 April 2017

A FORMER Downpatrick GP has been officially struck of for falsifying clinical trials.

Fifty nine year-old Hugh McGoldrick had his name removed from the medical register on Friday after he failed to lodge an appeal against a Medical Practitioners Tribunal (MTP) ruling last month.

The MTP ruled his name should be erased from the medical register after he was fined £10,000 for falsifying drug trials on patients with sleeping disorders.

The offences took place at his Pound Lane practice between 2007 and 2008 and involved ten patients.

McGoldrick, who lives at Crossgar Road East, Crossgar and who retired from practice last year after working in Downpatrick for over 30 years, received £500 for each patient screened for the drug trial and a further £1,600 for each patient who completed the trial.

However, the alarm was raised during a routine inspection visit to his Pound Lane practice in December 2007 when irregularities were flagged up.

Doubts arose when inspectors noted that all of McGoldrick’s patients qualified for the trial following a one week pre-trial screening process. The Crown Court was told that the typical success rate for the screening process was just 53 per cent of patients.

The court heard that if the patients had gone through the correct screening process they would probably have been excluded from the study for a number of reasons including the fact that several were overweight, had pre-existing medical conditions or were taking medication that would interfere with their natural sleep pattern and make them unsuitable.

At Downpatrick Crown Court last June McGoldrick was initially jailed for nine months, in addition to the fine but was released after two weeks on appeal when he jail sentence was suspended. His lawyers told the court all the money he received for the trials had been paid back.

Last month the case was considered by the MTP which ordered he be struck off. McGoldrick was given 28 days to appeal but he did not lodge any papers in time.

On Thursday, a spokesman for the MTP said: “We have not received any confirmation of an appeal either from the court or the doctor.

“So Dr McGoldrick’s name will be removed from the register today.’’