BRITAIN'S biggest medical defence organisation has backed the rights of struck-off doctors to work in the Health Service - as long as they do not actually practice medicine.

The Medical Protection Society's defence of the status quo came after calls to ban disgraced doctors from all NHS posts.

The calls were triggered by the revelation that surgeon Richard Neale was offered an NHS post in clinical audit in Manchester - monitoring the safety and reliability of other doctors - just a year after being struck off for botching a string of operations and dishonesty.

The group, which represents more than 200 of his former patients, has written to Health Secretary Alan Milburn asking for the law to be tightened up to keep disgraced doctors out of British hospitals.

While doctors who are struck off the medical register are forbidden to practice medicine there is currently nothing to stop them working in the wider health care industry.

But Dr Gerard Panting, spokesman for the Medical Protection Society, said the calls appeared to be motivated by "spite" and were "illogical and vindictive" and employment decisions should be left up to managers.

Dr Panting, whose organisation represents 130,000 doctors worldwide, said: "It doesn't seem very sensible to me to say just because there is this hysteria about doctors, after Ledward and Shipman, we should bring in various sanctions which have no logic to them whatsoever."

Dr Panting said a tightening of the rules would be "a punitive action which prevents them from rehabilitating themselves in another field."

Last week Mr Neale said he was grateful to the South Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust for giving him the chance to begin his rehabilitation.

Graham Maloney, advisor to the patient group set up by Mr Neale's victims, accused Dr Panting of showing a lack of sensitivity and common sense.

"I sat through the GMC hearing two years ago and I can say that Richard Neale was one of the worst cases ever heard. To allow him back into a health care environment is irresponsible and outrageous."

The group plans to lobby MPs to try to persuade the Department of Health to open up the forthcoming independent inquiry into the Neale scandal to the public and press.