‘Unscrupulous’ GP is jailed for nine months

‘Unscrupulous’ GP is jailed for nine months

29 June 2016

DOWNPATRICK GP Hugh McGoldrick has been jailed for nine months for falsifying a clinical trial involving 10 of his patients.

The 59 year-old doctor, the first person in the UK to be convicted of such an offence, has also been ordered to pay compensation of £10,000 for two charges relating to breaching trial protocol.

Sentencing McGoldrick, of Crossgar Road East, at Newtownards Court on Friday morning, Judge Piers Grant said he had thrown away his career through his “unscrupulous conduct.”

Expressing concern about the way in which McGoldrick had faced the offences, Judge Grant said the defendant had attempted to “put a very different gloss” on his conduct after making guilty pleas as part of an agreement in which others charges were not proceeded with.

Referring to this “Basis of Plea” agreement, he said the defendant accepted he “knowingly submitted false information and accepted he deliberately breached principles of clinical practice.”

“These are serious submissions on the part of the defendant and clearly reflect high culpability on his part,” the Judge said.

But he said McGoldrick, a GP in Downpatrick for 30 years, then “tried to excuse his conduct” in a way that seemed “implausible.”

Downpatrick Crown Court had previously heard details of how the doctor recruited 10, mostly elderly, patients to the study of insomnia medication, which involved over 1800 people worldwide.

The alarm was raised when inspectors noted that all of his patients qualified for the trial.

Prosecutor David McDowell QC said it was “remarkable” that 100 per cent of McGoldrick’s trial group had qualified for the study following a week-long screening process to determine their eligibility.

He explained that patients needed to submit a daily sleep diary through a dedicated phone line throughout this first week to determine their suitability.

To qualify they needed to have a particular type of insomnia, wakening during the night for a particular period of time.

The court heard that just 53 per cent of candidates typically qualify, with a £500 payment made for each patient who engaged in the screening week and an additional £1,600 due for each one who completed the trial.

Upon close examination, inspectors discovered a strange pattern of calls to the phone line, which patients should have been trained to use at their own convenience. It was unusual, they noted, that patients appeared to be phoning one after the other without any calls overlapping.

McGoldrick later admitted fabricating records for six patients, logging information himself and  claiming they had been reluctant to use the telephone system.

Judge Grant said the defendant could have easily have excluded these patients from the trial.

“It was a simple remedy to reject such patients and omit them from the trial, the defendant did not do so but submitted the information himself,” he said.

In addition to the false sleep records, the court heard that if proper screening had been carried out the patients would probably have been excluded from the study for a number of other reasons including the fact that several were overweight, had pre-existing medical conditions that would disqualify them from the study or were taking medication that would interfere with their natural sleep pattern and would therefore make them unsuitable.

The court heard, for example, that incorrect weight and/or height was logged for some patients, making them appear eligible, while several participants were prescribed hypnotic and painkilling medication around the time of the trial that should have led to their exclusion.

Referring to a pre-sentence report provided for the hearing, Judge Grant noted that McGoldrick offered no excuse for his behaviour.

“You simply say you were doing it for the benefit of clinical research, which I entirely reject,” he said.

Saying he had taken into account McGoldrick’s previously clear record and the fact the doctor had recently retired when considering sentence, Judge Grant said he was unlikely to be invited to work in the medical field in the future.

“You yourself are the person who has thrown that away through your unscrupulous conduct,” he said

“I take the view these are serious offences and the message needs to be sent out loud and clear that people not adhering to the protocol will suffer the consequences.

“People like you must be deterred. Your breach of trust and your response to that breach of trust requires a custodial sentence. I am concerned about the way in which you have faced these offences. Your only sorrow concerns the fact that you were caught.”