The needle and the damage done

As seen in this report

The biggest case in the General Medical Council's 145-year history sees seven doctors from the Stapleford Centre, a leading addiction clinic in England, accused of irresponsible practice. It has been billed as a showdown not only between two opposing schools of opinion about how heroin addicts should be handled, but also between the NHS and private practice. Never before have so many doctors been jointly charged with serious professional misconduct.

The charges against the Stapleford doctors, which took more than an hour to read out, enumerated on 33 sheets of A4 paper, allege a wide range of malpractices. They include prescribing irresponsibly in regard to the nature, amounts and combinations of drugs; failure to provide adequate initial assessment of patients' condition and needs; failure to provide adequate dose assessment; failure to monitor patients properly, or to establish that they were able to pay for treatment 'through legitimate means'; and prescribing at intervals that would create 'the potential for diversion' - that is, selling drugs on the black market. Colin Brewer personally faces 14 separate charges, including what is perhaps the most serious, relating to the death of a Stapleford patient after a 'DIY home detox' arranged by the clinic.