An officer calls the practice or the ward and asks whether you will come to the station to talk about a patient. They may describe it as a formality. If the police suspect you of an offence, it is a police interview under caution. Every word of it goes on the record. The recording can go before a jury and will in time reach the General Medical Council. The rules that govern it sit in Code C of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, in the version that has had effect since 20 December 2023. You should know the main ones before you agree a date.

Voluntary does not mean informal

Police interview most doctors as volunteers rather than after an arrest. Paragraph 3.21 of Code C provides that anyone attending voluntarily may leave at will unless arrested. The officer who cautions you must, at the same time, tell you two things. You are not under arrest, and you do not have to stay. Before asking for your consent to an interview, the interviewer must explain your rights. They include the right to information about the offence. They also include the right to free and independent legal advice, with a solicitor present in the room. The police record the whole interview under Code E or Code F. Agreeing to take part means agreeing to the recording.

Code C is explicit on the point. Arranging an interview on a voluntary basis does not diminish the rights and safeguards that apply to it. The setting is quieter than a custody suite, but the consequences are the same.

The caution and the cost of silence

Paragraph 10.5 sets out the caution. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you fail to mention something you later rely on in court, and anything you say may be given in evidence. The middle part reflects section 34 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. It applies where you rely at trial on a fact you did not mention when questioned under caution. A court or jury may then draw such inferences as appear proper.

You keep the right to stay silent, and in some cases silence is the correct advice. In others, an answer to every question or a prepared written statement serves you better. The choice turns on what the police disclose about the allegation and on the state of the clinical evidence. It also turns on the risk that a late account looks invented. You make that decision with your lawyer after disclosure, never in the corridor beforehand.

Disclosure comes first

Code C requires the police to give you enough information about the offence, and why they suspect you of it. It must be enough to allow you to exercise your rights of defence. In a clinical case, expect little more than the patient's name, the date and the offence under consideration. Your lawyer will then press for the expert material, records and witness accounts the police intend to put to you. The answer shapes the advice on whether to answer questions at all.

What your lawyer may do in the room

Note 6D of Code C sets out the solicitor's role. Their only role in the police station is to protect and advance your legal rights. That role includes intervening to seek clarification and challenging an improper question or the way the officer puts it. It also includes advising you not to answer a particular question and stopping the interview to give you further advice.

Under paragraph 6.9, an officer may require a solicitor to leave in one case only. That is where the solicitor's conduct prevents the interviewer putting proper questions. Paragraph 6.4 forbids any officer from saying or doing anything intended to dissuade you from taking legal advice. Note 6ZA also forbids any officer from indicating that the interview will take less time if you do not ask for legal advice. The same ban covers a hint that it will be shorter if you do not want a solicitor present.

What not to do while you wait

  • Do not contact the patient, the family or colleagues who are likely to be witnesses about the events.
  • Do not add to or amend the clinical record. Paragraph 69 of Good medical practice requires formal records of your work to be clear, accurate, contemporaneous and legible. A late entry made after you learn of an investigation invites the worst reading.
  • Do not discuss the case in messaging groups. Paragraph 93 of Good medical practice reminds you that private messages may become public.

The GMC and your employer

Paragraph 99 of Good medical practice requires you to tell the GMC without delay if you accept a caution or are charged. The same applies if you are found guilty of a criminal offence. Our guide to criminal convictions and cautions and what you must tell the GMC covers that duty in detail. An interview on its own is not on that list. That does not mean the regulator will not hear of it.

The GMC's reporting guidance asks you to follow your employer's own reporting rules. The police also operate a scheme known as Common Law Police Disclosure. Under it, one event is the main trigger for considering a disclosure to an employer or regulator. That event is the arrest, or the voluntary interview as a suspect, of a person for a recordable offence. So assume the GMC will read your interview one day. Give an account you will stand behind before a tribunal.

Courts give weight to the first account a person gives and look hard at any later change to it. I sat as a fee paid judge of the County Court for more than four years. For that reason, I advise every doctor to treat the police interview as that first account.

How Eloquia handles an interview

If you are a nurse, dentist, pharmacist or other healthcare professional

The same advice applies if you are a nurse, dental professional, pharmacist or paramedic. You must report a caution you accept at the police station. Paragraph 23.2 of the NMC Code requires it. So do standard 9.3 of the GDC's standards and standard 9.5 of the HCPC's standards. Each requires you to tell your regulator about a caution, a charge or criminal proceedings, and the regulator then considers the caution. Our pages for nurses and midwives, dentists, pharmacists and HCPC professionals explain what follows.

Eloquia is not a law firm. Advice at the police station and in any criminal proceedings comes through our regulated criminal defence partner. We run the regulatory side alongside it so that one strategy covers both cases. Police interview and pre charge representations cost a fixed £15,000 plus VAT. The fee includes the specialist barrister involved from the outset, and we quote expert fees separately.

Sources

  1. PACE Code C 2023, Home Office
  2. Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, section 34
  3. Good medical practice 2024, Domain 3: Colleagues, culture and safety, GMC
  4. Good medical practice 2024, Domain 4: Trust and professionalism, GMC
  5. Reporting criminal and regulatory proceedings within and outside the UK, GMC
  6. Common Law Police Disclosures: provisions to supersede the Notifiable Occupations Scheme, NPCC (2017)
  7. Good medical practice 2024, Domain 1: Knowledge, skills and development, paragraph 69, GMC
  8. The Code, NMC (paragraph 23.2)
  9. GDC: Standards for the Dental Team (standard 9.3)
  10. HCPC: Standards of conduct, performance and ethics (standard 9.5)