Ms Emma Bowler has been struck off by the RCVS Disciplinary Committee after multiple clinical failings.

Ms Bowler faced four sets of charges, each of which contained sub-charges, summarised as follows: 

• that between August 2018 and March 2022, she failed to provide adequate care to 18 animals on which she had performed surgery.
• that she failed to provide adequate care to a German Shepherd Cross Belgian Malinois in relation to surgery she had performed early in 2020.
• that in May 2021, when speaking to a client about surgery performed on their Jack Russell, Ms Bowler told the client that everything that had been written in the clinical records up to the point of the surgery referred to the right hind being the problem, when this was not the case and/or the veterinary surgeon who had seen the client about the x-rays prior to the surgery had not placed any notes on the file at the time the Jack Russell came in for surgery, when this was not the case.
• that Ms Bowler’s conduct in relation to the third charge was dishonest, and/or misleading.

Despite being served with the Notice of Inquiry, Ms Bowler decided not to attend the hearing due to ill-health but was represented by a counsel and solicitors.

The Committee did not find that Ms Bowler was medically unfit to attend on the basis of the medical evidence before it.

The Committee also concluded that it was in the public interest and interests of Ms Bowler to proceed with the hearing in her absence so that it could be concluded in a timely manner.  

Ms Bowler’s counsel applied for parts of the hearing to be heard in private on health grounds, which was approved by the Committee.

It was also determined that any parts in the Committee’s decision or hearing that referred to Ms Bowler’s health would be redacted. 

At the outset of the hearing, Ms Bowler’s counsel made admissions to five of the sub-charges which the Committee therefore found proven.

She also made some partial admissions in relations to a further 11 sub-charges.

After hearing a wide range of evidence, both written and oral, from Ms Bowler, the College, from clients and from an expert witness, the Committee found all charges proved except for four sub-charges.

On deciding whether the proved charges amounted to serious professional misconduct, the Committee took the following aggravating factors into account.

• In respect of charges 1 and 2, several animals suffered unnecessary injury (these charges encompassed 18 animals).
• In respect of charge 2, Ms Bowler had acted recklessly in performing revision surgery and should have recognised that she was significantly beyond her surgical ability.
• In respect of charges 3 and 4, Ms Bowler’s conduct was aggravated by her lack of integrity.
• That, overall, the misconduct spanned approximately three years and eight months and involved repetition of egregious failings.
• It was also noted that the charges encompassed multiple animals that were either caused injury or were at risk of injury.

In mitigation: 

• Ms Bowler had been working in an atmosphere that generated a highly pressurised working environment, which was somewhat unsupportive to her.
• Regarding clinical record keeping, Ms Bowler had less time available due to her heavy workload.
• Personal circumstances which exacerbated the pressures she faced at work.
• Ms Bowler had no previous disciplinary findings against her.
• She received positive character references.'
• She had made partial admissions in her statement and response to the charges and had apologised to the owners in respect of charge 2 and acknowledged that she was inexperienced in performing total hip replacements.
• Ms Bowler has subsequently made substantial efforts to avoid repetition of some of the matters encompassed in the charges.

In all, the Committee decided that the seriousness of the misconduct meant that a sanction was necessary to meet the public interest.

When deciding on whether to issue a reprimand with or without a warning, the Committee once again decided that the misconduct was too serious to allow for this.

It also decided that a reprimand and/or warning was not sufficient to protect animals and the wider public interest.

It then went onto consider whether a sanction of ‘suspension’ was sufficient but noted that it did not have enough evidence to show that Ms Bowler had shown significant insight to continue to practise unrestricted in the future.

The Committee eventually concluded that Ms Bowler’s conduct was incompatible with remaining on the Register.

Neil Slater, chairing the Disciplinary Committee and speaking on its behalf, said: “The Committee decided that the broad range of Ms Bowler’s misconduct which had spanned three years and eight months and involving injury or risk of injury to 18 animals, was incompatible with remaining on the Register and the public interest required removal from the Register even when all of Ms Bowler’s mitigation was taken into account.

“The Committee decided that it did not have sufficient evidence overall on Ms Bowler’s insight, current competence and future risk to persuade it that the lesser sanction of suspension was appropriate in this case.

“Although Ms Bowler had shown some insight, the Committee decided that she would need to have provided detailed evidence about her current practice before it could decide that she no longer represented a risk to animals in the future.

“The Committee therefore concluded that ‘removal from the Register’ was the appropriate and proportionate sanction because there had been a serious departure from professional standards, a reckless disregard for professional standards, multiple cases involving harm or risk of harm to animals and because, in Ms Bowler’s absence, it had been difficult to unravel whether she had an attitudinal problem.

“These were all factors in the Disciplinary Committee Sanctions Guidance that indicated that a sanction of removal was the appropriate sanction and, in the Committee’s decision, removal from the Register was the only sanction which would meet the public interest.

"It concluded that a lesser sanction would undermine public confidence in the profession and in the regulatory process.”

https://www.rcvs.org.uk/concerns/disciplinary-hearings 

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