HARD on the heels of the shocking disclosure last week that mass murderer Dr Harold Shipman killed up to 265 patients over a quarter of a century comes an equally chilling revelation today.

It is that, when he was fined and sent into professional disgrace in 1976 for forging prescriptions and stealing a morphine substitute to feed his own addiction, an assurance was given in court that Shipman would not return to general practice or work with patients or prescriptions.

So we discover from his former colleague, retired GP Dr Michael Grieve, the man who blew the whistle on him when he was working at the Abraham Ormerod medical centre in Todmorden 26 years ago.

Dr Grieve speaks of the shock of discovering years later that Shipman had got back into general practice without any advice or anyone keeping an eye on him.

The public needs total reassurance that such a rogue doctor could never again do the same?

The role and powers of the General Medical Council, the medical profession's registration body, surely warrant thorough review.

And these deeply disturbing disclosures also beg the question of whether the new National Clinical Assessment Authority being set up by the government to investigate suspect doctors will provide sufficient extra safeguards if it will not have the power to suspend or dismiss doctors,

If the authority to licence doctors is to be retained by the GMC, it must immediately provide absolute assurance that nothing like the Shipman horror could happen again and that its duty to ensure the protection of patients always supersedes that of looking after the interests of the profession.

Otherwise, it must be stripped of that power.