Dr Heather Steen: Halted tribunal set to go ahead

A fitness to practice hearing is set to go ahead involving a paediatrician who worked at a Belfast hospital.

The hearing was halted after lawyers for Dr Heather Steen said that their client was applying to be removed from the medical register on health grounds.

She is accused of failings following the death of Claire Roberts in 1996.

Dr Steen's lawyers said this part of the hearing involving their client's health should be heard entirely in private.

However, the General Medical Council successfully argued there was a public interest in as much detail as possible relating to this part of the application.

Claire Roberts died at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, where Dr Steen worked, in October 1996.

The nine-year-old's death was examined by the hyponatraemia inquiry, which lasted 14 years.

The hyponatraemia inquiry looked at the role of several doctors and examined the hospital deaths of three children, the aftermath of the death of a fourth and issues arising from the death of a fifth.

The fitness to practice hearing is inquiring into allegations that between October 1996 and May 2006, Dr Steen knowingly and dishonestly carried out several actions to conceal the true circumstances of the child's death.

The hearing is set to continue on Wednesday.

If voluntary erasure is granted and Dr Steen is removed from the medical register, the fitness to practice hearing would be halted and she would cease to be a doctor.

The hearing is expected to last up to five weeks.