Dr Peter William Brown

The Medical Council of NSW is aware of media and public comments made about the Council’s interactions with Surry Hills GP, Dr Peter William Brown. The Council cannot for legal reasons discuss the details of its formal discussions or meetings with Dr Brown to ensure he is afforded natural justice, privacy and procedural fairness.

The Council’s paramount obligation is to protect the public by ensuring NSW medical practitioners work to professional standards and practise safely. When the Council receives a complaint, it is required to properly consider and assess it. This involves the Council entering into formal discussions with the practitioner who is the subject of the complaint, to gain a better understanding of their current medical practice and hear their response to the complaint. This helps the Council’s decision-makers, who are medical practitioner peers and community representatives, to decide whether remedial action is required.

• The Medical Council took regulatory action to protect the general public and patients and placed conditions on Dr Brown’s practice on 11 June 2020.
• The Medical Council lifted all the conditions it had placed on Dr Brown’s practice on 30 July 2020, to provide him more time and a further opportunity to discuss and respond to the concerns raised by the Council.
• The Medical Council does not mandate the use of computerised record keeping systems or receptionists in general practice, and has never imposed conditions on Dr Brown’s registration of this nature.

Background

The Medical Council works in collaboration with the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission to receive and manage complaints about registered doctors and medical students in NSW. The Council’s paramount legal obligation is to protect the public. It deals with doctors whose conduct, performance or health may represent a risk to the public.

We do this by assessing complaints, promoting compliance with professional standards and delivering programs to ensure doctors provide safe care to their patients. This can include for example, placing conditions on a doctor’s practice to support them to meet expected professional standards of care. These conditions are not intended to be punitive but are protective of public safety.

The Council does not have the legal power to punish NSW medical practitioners or to deregister them.

The Council will not be making any further public comments at this time.