THE chief medical officer has been ordered to investigate how medical expert witnesses are used in child protection cases.
The inquiry by Sir Liam Donaldson, which follows the acquittals of several women wrongfully convicted of murdering their own children, could result in the establishment of an official register of approved medical witnesses.
The initiative, announced by Margaret Hodge, the Children’s Minister, yesterday, follows mounting concern over the competence of medical witnesses called in care proceedings in the family court, which can lead to children being removed from their families.
Many medical professionals specialising in child abuse no longer want to do the job following a number of recent cases in which evidence from expert witnesses has been discredited. This prompted a review of 250 murder convictions involving children under two, including cases involving the retired paediatrician, Professor Sir Roy Meadow.
His theory that multiple cot deaths in the same family were likely to be murder has been rejected in a series of recent cases including those of Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Trupti Patel.
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Mrs Hodge has asked Sir Liam to identify ways in which the medical competence of experts can be checked and to pull together examples of best practice in this field. Mrs Hodge also asked Sir Liam to “advise on a sustainable supply of competent, quality-assured expert medical witness”.
The review follows publication yesterday of the results of a review of more than 5,175 cases of children who have been the subject of care proceedings since 23 February this year.
Only 47 of the cases involved disputed evidence from a medical expert witness and, of these, only one has resulted in a local authority overturning a decision and allowing a child to remain with its family. The result of 38 cases involving disputed evidence is still awaited. Of the 100 criminal cases reviewed so far, possible ground for appeal have been identified in five.
Mrs Hodge said that the low numbers should not lead to complacency. She added that a survey would now be carried out into 30,000 historic cases of children taken into care.
She also said that she would write to local authorities to ask them to review family cases involving Dr Colin Paterson, who was struck off the medical register earlier this year over his controversial theories about brittle bone disease.
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Felicity Collier, of the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, welcomed the announcement, saying it would help restore confidence in the child protection system.