argued the suspension did not go far enough and said he should instead be erased from the medical register,<\/a> which would ban him from working as a doctor. But it failed in its fourth attempt to have the decision overturned at the Court of Appeal on 16 January.<\/p>\nMr Gilbert’s suspension expired in September 2025, and he is currently registered as working at The Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital. <\/p>\n
In April, high court judge Mr Justice Calver ruled that Mr Gilbert should have a 12-month suspension rather than be struck off, saying he agreed with the tribunal\u2019s decision that erasure from the medical register would be a \u201cdisproportionate\u201d punishment.<\/p>\n
Dismissing the GMC\u2019s latest appeal, Lady Justice Andrews said: \u201cI am satisfied that the conclusion reached by the judge was one which was open to him, and one with which there is no basis for this court to interfere. There is no substance in the criticism that he failed to properly apply the guidance or that his reasoning was deficient. I, too, would dismiss the appeal on all grounds.\u201d <\/p>\n
The only route for further appeal would be for the GMC to take the case to the Supreme Court. The regulator said it was currently reviewing the appeal court\u2019s decision. <\/p>\n
In a statement to The Independent, the four NHS workers Mr Gilbery was found to have harassed said: \u201cJames Gilbert was proven to have sexually harassed and assaulted multiple surgeons who trained under his mentorship and educational supervision over a period exceeding a decade. Several of these incidents occurred during live surgical procedures, placing patient safety directly at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
They continued: \u201cAs the targets of his misconduct, we encountered a profound absence of institutional safety at every level in our attempts to act in order to protect both patients and colleagues… Today marks a deeply troubling moment for the British public and the medical profession, and stands as a stark and damning indictment of the standards deemed acceptable for doctors in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following publication of the ruling, a GMC spokesperson said: \u201cOur position is very clear \u2013 there is no place for sexual misconduct in healthcare, and we have always maintained Dr Gilbert should have been struck off. We appealed twice in this case to secure an outcome that we felt would protect patients and uphold confidence in the profession.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the latest ruling, Professor Vivien Lees, senior vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, said there was a need for \u201csignificant systemic reform, including reviewing current sanctions,\u201d adding, \u201cthe current system of medical regulation has too often failed targets of misconduct\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of delivering justice, it has frequently compounded trauma, allowed perpetrators to remain in positions of authority, and ultimately undermined patient care,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Mr Gilbert has been approached for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-463432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}