THE CASE of incompetent East Lancashire family doctor Ahmed Zaman is shocking enough itself - he lied again and again to cover up his messed-up treatment of elderly Thomas McHugh, who later died. He even sent Mr McHugh to a residential home he owned when he was so desperately ill that he should have been admitted to hospital at once.

But if the Darwen GP's getting away with just a four-month suspension by the General Medical Council increases the disquiet about this whole matter, then, surely, the deliberate disregard by the GMC of his previous instances of medical misconduct amounts to a disgrace.

They decided not to impose a more severe punishment because, they said, the case of his serious professional misconduct in his treatment of Mr McHugh appeared to be an "isolated" one.

It was not. Twice before, Dr Zaman had been reprimanded by local medical bodies for refusing to visit seriously-ill patients.

One later died and the other had to be rushed to hospital for life-saving surgery.

Yet, incredibly, we learn that transgressions as grave as this are regarded as minor matters by the almighty GMC - even to the extent that they do not count.

For they tell us: "Where we have not taken formal action ourselves, it would not be our practice to put those local complaints before the committee considering sentencing for other matters."

Oh, really? And why not? "When our committee describes events as isolated, it is in the context of matters of sufficient seriousness to have justified our formal intervention," they say.

That's like a judge in crown court ignoring an accused's previous convictions from the magistrates' court.

In short, this is the arbitrary attitude of an elitist body giving to itself almost god-like powers to determine what is serious misconduct and what isn't - when a Brownie with a first-aid badge could tell them that someone being ignored by their doctor and having to be rushed to hospital for a life-or-death operation is mighty serious indeed.

This is not an even-handed disciplinary body when it can pick and choose the facts it will take into consideration.

And the absurdly inadequate punishment it has handed out after ignoring Dr Zaman's disturbing previous record suggests to us that the GMC places its duty to protect patients from incompetent doctors way behind a readiness to protect incompetent doctors as much as they can.

We regard that as tantamount to serious medical misconduct too - as should the government.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.