A doctor who was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter after the death of a six-year-old boy has been declared fit to practice medicine again.
Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba, 43, can now be re-added to an official register, allowing her to treat patients once more, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service ruled.
Bawa-Garba received a suspended sentence after she was found responsible for the death of Jack Adcock, who went into septic shock while in her care.
Jack, from Glen Parva, Leicestershire – who had Down’s Syndrome and a heart condition – died at Leicester Royal Infirmary in 2011.
After a trial at Nottingham Crown Court in 2015, Bawa-Garba was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for two years.
The sentencing judge said that neither she nor a nurse who was on duty at the time “gave Jack the priority which this very sick boy deserved”.
Jack’s sepsis symptoms were described during the trial as “barn-door obvious”.
The General Medical Council (GMC) had previously argued that a suspension was “not sufficient” to protect the public or maintain public confidence in the medical profession.
Bawa-Garba apologised while giving evidence to this week’s tribunal, prompting Jack’s mother, Nicky Adcock, 45, to shout from the public gallery that her words came “eight years too late”.
Bawa-Garba added to the tribunal: “This case will live with me for the rest of my life.”
The panel’s chair, Claire Sharp, said the risk of Bawa-Garba putting another patient at unwarranted risk of harm was low and the evidence showed she had undertaken a “significant” amount of remediation.
Sharp said: “Given the remediation, Dr Bawa-Garba has already undertaken and the full insight she has developed into her shortcomings, the tribunal was satisfied that Dr Bawa-Garba has the potential to respond positively to remediation, retraining, and to her work being supervised.
“From the evidence before it the tribunal was also satisfied that Dr Bawa-Garba remains fully committed to keeping her skills and knowledge up-to-date and that she has made substantial progress in doing so, despite not being in clinical practice.”