A surgeon who lost his claim for unfair dismissal after he was sacked for allegedly lying about an operation that went wrong has won the right to take his case back to the employment tribunal for a new ruling.
More than four years after David Skidmore was dismissed, the appeal court ruled that Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust should have used the disciplinary procedure for professional misconduct and should not have treated his case as one of personal misconduct.
Three appeal court judges ruled that the case should go back to an employment tribunal to reconsider whether his dismissal was unfair. John Barker, his adviser at the Medical Protection Society, said: "It's inconceivable that the tribunal can do other than conclude that he was unfairly dismissed, given that the trust used the wrong procedure."
Dr Barker said he believed that Mr Skidmore, who lost a substantial part of his private practice, would also have a possible High Court claim for breach of contract, under which much larger damages could be awarded. He disputed the trust's finding that Mr Skidmore had lied and added: "One might hope that the present trustees will be willing to negotiate a settlement which will save everybody even more years of protracted litigation."
Mr Skidmore, now aged 62, remained an honorary senior clinical lecturer at University College London Medical School (now Royal Free and University College Medical School) after he was sacked from his post as senior surgeon at Joyce Green Hospital in Dartford, Kent, in 1997. Since then he has also held a number of locum posts in the NHS.
The trust accused him of lying to a patient and her husband, the local community health council, and the trust's chief executive. They claimed that he falsely blamed the complications of a gallbladder removal on a defective instrument and understated the number of pints of blood transfused after an artery was punctured.
The disciplinary process for professional misconduct requires the trust to set up an independent tribunal, but personal misconduct allegations are dealt with by a quicker, cheaper, internal procedure. Appeals are also dealt with internally.
Mr Skidmore took his case to an employment tribunal, which decided by a two to one majority that he had not been unfairly dismissed. The dissenting tribunal member concluded that the surgeon had been a "thorn in the side" of the trust, which had wanted to get rid of him.
The surgeon appealed to an employment appeal tribunal, where he lost again, but he finally succeeded last week in the court of appeal. The court ruled that allegations of lying in the course of clinical practice were a matter of professional, not personal, conduct and should have been dealt with by an independent tribunal, which would have included a medical expert.
After he was sacked, the trust filed two complaints about Mr Skidmore with the General Medical Council, but both were thrown out by the preliminary proceedings committee.
A spokesman for the trust said it was "not making any comment while it considers what to do."