Checks on doctor's death rate slammed

May 4 2008

SERIAL killers like Harold Shipman won't be stopped by a system monitoring doctors, it was claimed yesterday.

Scots researchers examining the scheme's effectiveness say it would only raise the alarm after dozens of murders had already been committed.

Routine checks on general practice death rates was one of many reforms recommended by the Shipman inquiry to boost the chances of detecting and deterring killers.

But Professor Bruce Guthrie, of Dundee University, said: "A monitoring system that can only detect a serial killer after 30 or more people have been murdered is not effective.

"It cannot substitute for other recommended reforms of the coroner and death certification systems."

Researchers also found monitoring generated a large number of false alarms and added it was not feasible to assess individual GPs as patients are registered with a practice rather one medic.

Shipman, 57, murdered at least 215 people between 1975 and 1998.

He was jailed for life in January 2000 but hanged himself in his cell in 2004.

Jude Lang, 48, of Cornwall, whose mum Margaret Waldron, 65, was one of his victims, said: "The report appears very worrying."

The Department of Health said: "All important changes on issues as vital as safeguards will be tested carefully and vigorously."