DAVID Hinchliffe, chairman of the powerful Commons Health Select Committee, has called for the question of self-regulation by doctors to be urgently re-examined.

It follows revelations about the failure of the General Medical Council (GMC) to protect hundreds of women injured by former surgeon, Richard Neale, who worked at the Friarage Hospital, in Northallerton, North Yorkshire.

Last month, the GMC was forced to admit that by the late 1980s it did know that the disgraced former North Yorkshire consultant had been struck off in Canada after the deaths of two patients, but failed to take any action.

Previously, the body which regulates UK doctors had maintained that it had no knowledge of Mr Neale until patients complained in 1998.

The surgeon was struck off in the UK in 2000 after botching several operations.

The revelation followed the discovery of correspondence between the GMC and North Yorkshire Police. Had the GMC taken action in the late 1980s, many of his victims would not have been injured.

Mr Hinchliffe, who was responsible for holding a special session of the Health Committee, in Northallerton, to hear testimony from Neale's victims five years ago, met with the leaders of the patient support group at the House of Commons yesterday.

Afterwards he told The Northern Echo: "This development is so fundamentally important that I believe the whole question of the self-regulation of the medical profession should be re-opened as a matter of urgency."

The Wakefield MP has written to Health Secretary John Reid about the new twist in the Neale story.