News

Children's charities are calling for a rewording of the Children Act 1989, following a court case last week involving a family doctor who failed to pass on details of a disclosure of sexual abuse.

The NSPCC and Barnardo's want the act to spell out GPs' child protection responsibilities more clearly.

Currently, the Working Together child protection guidance states that GPs should know when it is appropriate to act on concerns that a child may be at risk of significant harm through abuse, while the British Medical Association simply advises that each doctor should decide whether to report concerns on a case by case basis.


Tink Palmer, principal policy and practice officer at Barnardo's, warned that many GPs were not provided with "sufficiently strongly-worded guidance" on how to deal with disclosures of abuse in a family when they treated all members.

"This is still very much an issue for GPs who are often loath to come forward with information because they feel it will ruin their relationship with the whole family."

An NSPCC spokesperson added that the law needed to be strengthened. "What we want to see is GPs, along with police, included specifically in the Children Act, rather than just Working Together," she said.

The High Court test case, brought by a woman against her former doctor, related to abuse she suffered as a child in the 1970s. The woman, now in her thirties, claimed that Andrew Cairns should have contacted police or social services after her mother told him she had been abused by her stepfather from the age of five.


But judge Stuart Brown QC ruled last week that Cairns, who had been told by the woman's mother to keep the disclosures "within these walls", had not breached his duty of care to the daughter.

"I am satisfied that his decision accorded with that likely to have been reached by many responsible, caring colleagues," Brown told the court.