Incident at Guy's: the Facts
14 December 2009
The report in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday is wrong about the facts.
In April Professor Toft was told by a journalist that there had been an incident at Guy’s that the HFEA were not investigating. This was not true. Toft did not check the facts with the HFEA but expressed his opinion then that we are not “fit for purpose”.
He repeated this view yesterday. Once again he did not check the facts and he appears to be unaware of the law.
By law we do not have the power to apply conditions of the kind he describes to a licence without observing the process laid down in the Act. To do so would be against natural justice and would be bound to fail against legal challenge.
The HFEA makes no apology therefore for investigating this – and other – incidents rigorously and within the framework laid down by law. It is not the case that this works against patient interests or puts them at risk.
Where there are urgent changes to be made in the interests of safety then they should be made long before the investigation reaches the point of a Licence Committee meeting. This is what happened in this case, as the papers before the Licence Committee today clearly show.
Page last updated: 14 December 2009