For the sake of Pat (and others) can I clarify why I THINK this thread has been closed (but am not sure!) It took me ages to work it out. I was all indignant and initially wrote asking (in gist) what the problem was and why you seem to have changed the Terms the day after Pat's posting, bearing in mind the really useful answers I was getting for personal cases with my professional hat on. Now I have realised that there is a separate (Dr. Fixit) forum available rather than this one, and Pat already seems to have found this. So I will cut and paste my answer to him there.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jim Newmark,

Hi Jim,

Apologies for taking so long to reply to your question ...we’ve been having a good look at the SMMGP Forums and their Terms & Conditions as a whole.

The SMMGP Forums have had a rule since their creation back in 2001 which prevents the discussion of individual named or identifiable cases. However, there have always been “grey areas” and the Terms & Conditions are open to interpretation. Also the Forum Membership has shifted from almost entirely health professionals to a mix of health professionals and the general public. Clearly, the original rule has not been uniformly enforced by all Forum Moderators and (as you’ve noticed) this means that some topics have been closed down whilst others of a similar nature have continued.

SMMGP are now looking into this issue and whether or not the original rule is still relevant. We will also be completely updating the Terms & Conditions and Forum descriptions.

In the meantime, I’ve re-opened Pat’s original topic

Hi everyone. Decided it is time to start posting again. Anyway as the person who pretty much set up the original rules I thought I should comment on this. I was also probably the most officious moderator in enforcing them.

By the way Jim there was always a rule about not asking for medical advice because we didn't want to expose practitioners to medico legal risk by offering advice over the internet about people who weren't their patients and didn't have a full case history of. I think the original rules said members should avoid reference to personal treamtent issues unless directly relevant to the topic in hand. This was a bit wooly I suppose but we thought it would allow service users to use their own histories as illustration within a discussion as opposed to seeking medical advice. I notice the bit about directly relevant to the topic in hand has been removed which is sort of a shame but perhaps necessary. This is the change in the rules I think that Jim refers to but the post that was removed (I saw it) would have been removed (by me at least) under the old rules for the reasons given above, I personally removed or responded advising others not to respond every time this came up (I always tried to contact the poster giving advice as where to go to and why we had removed their post though).



I think a revisiting of the rules would be good.