Mr David Kirby
About me
I qualified from the University of Nottingham in 1996 and undertook basic surgical training in Stoke-on-Trent. During this time I developed a passion for emergency care and found I was suited to the stressful situation of rapidly gaining information and acting quickly upon it. In 2000 I gained the Membership Diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (MRCS).
I therefore undertook higher specialist training in the East of England, and I spent further training in Paediatric Emergency Medicine dealing with sick children both in the emergency department and in paediatric intensive care. In 2007 I gained the Fellowship Diploma of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (FRCEM).
I gained entry to the specialist register for both standard Emergency Medicine and also the subspecialty of Paediatric Emergency Medicine, and was appointed as a Consultant at the Luton & Dunstable University Hospital in 2008.
After three years as Clinical Director for Acute & Emergency Medicine, I was appointed in 2015 to the role of Deputy Medical Director for the Trust - in 2020 L&D merged with Bedford Hospital to form Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, for which I remain as one of the Deputy Medical Directors with cross site responsibilities. The Trust has over 400 consultants and a combined bed base of around 1,100.
I still maintain a full clinical practice in Emergency Medicine, and will normally work around 25 to 30 hours per week on the shop floor providing direct clinical care to patients and leadership of the department, with full on-call duties.
I became increasingly interested in the interface between Law and Medicine, and the skills required in explaining how decisions in medicine are interpreted in law. I began to attend almost all inquests in which my trust was an interested party, and found that by doing so both HM Coroner and the families of the deceased were able to benefit from my attendance and evidence.
Spurred on by this, I undertook a masters in healthcare law and ethics at the University of Manchester. I successfully gained this degree in 2022, having my dissertation on ‘The interface between Law and Medicine’ awarded with Distinction.
Since then I have a thriving medico-legal practice, which sees me producing several reports each month for both claimant and defence in litigation, and also coronial inquests.
A significant proportion of my coronial work has involved deaths in state detention, giving me particular expertise in the scope of Article 2, the application of the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act. This includes the use of force and restraint, particularly the contentious areas of positional asphyxia (positional cardiac arrest), toxicology and acute behavioural disturbance.
I hold NPPV2/CTC clearance from the Metropolitan Police Service.