His child protection work and research into Munchausen syndrome by proxy attracted controversy and led to conflict with the General Medical Council.
[1] In 1993, during the Bosnian War, Southall was invited by the Overseas Development Administration of the British Government (now DFID) to visit Sarajevo to identify and evacuate children in need of urgent medical treatment which could not be provided locally because of armed conflict.
[1] After this mission he was asked by UNICEF to become a consultant and lead a programme from 1993-1995 to help children in Mostar and in camps for internally displaced families in other areas of Bosnia.
[1] Since 2009, and in order to reflect the close involvement of CAI with the emergency care of pregnant women and adolescent girls, the charity was re-named Maternal and Childhealth Advocacy International (MCAI).
[10] Additional programs of CAI and subsequently of MCAI involved apprenticeship based training in hospital care of pregnant women, newborn infants and children in Kosovo, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Uganda, The Gambia and Liberia.
In 1993, Southall reported in the British Medical Journal a study investigating the performance of invasive procedures in the intensive care of infants and children.
As a consequence he was appointed chair of a working party of the British Paediatric Association to develop guidelines on the management of pain control in children in hospital in the UK.
[14] Techniques included the controversial covert video surveillance (CVS) in hospital of infant and child patients by police or specially trained nursing staff to observe the interactions of their parents with the children.
Four patients who had been subjected to recurrent suffocation before CVS suffered permanent neurologic deficits and/or required anticonvulsant therapy for epileptic seizures resulting from hypoxic cerebral injury.
The project concluded in its report in the medical journal Pediatrics that “Induced illness is a severe form of abuse that may cause death or permanent neurologic impairment.
"[17] The concerns of a campaigning group of parents accused of abuse, a small proportion of parents involved in the ventilator study described below and their advocates, including a woman who was imprisoned subsequently for conspiracy to abduct a child,[18] led to an investigation of Southall's child protection work, in particular covert video surveillance, by his employer the North Staffordshire Hospital.
[28] The same campaigning group (MAMA) also complained about the randomised controlled trial of CNEP to the General Medical Council (GMC) who many years later in 2008 investigated Southall and two colleagues at a fitness to practice hearing.
[31] He subsequently presented his evidence to a formally convened child protection case conference, members of which expressed their view at a GMC hearing that his input was important.
[32] In the General Medical Council’s (GMC) subsequent publication: Protecting children and young people: the responsibilities of all doctors July 2012 and active 3 September 2012,[33] there is the following statement: "You must tell an appropriate agency, such as your local authority children's services, the NSPCC or the police, promptly if you are concerned that a child or young person is at risk of, or is suffering, abuse or neglect unless it is not in their best interests to do so (see paragraphs 39 and 40).
[37] In his judgment, Mr. Justice Blake stated that Southall "had speculated on non-medical matters in an offensive manner entirely inconsistent with the status of an independent expert."
The senior social worker present and taking notes throughout the interview gave evidence that the mother’s allegation was incorrect and also denied that Southall had made the accusation.
Southall stated that this final closure of the GMC case in September 2011 was a "victory over an orchestrated and dangerous campaign which has waged war over 16 years against my work in trying to protect children from life threatening abuse".