A doctor who was sacked after leaving a patient in the middle of an operation to have sex with a colleague is at “very low risk” of repeating his serious misconduct, a medical tribunal has ruled.
Consultant anaesthetist Dr Suhail Anjum and an unnamed nurse were caught in a “compromising position” by a shocked colleague at Tameside Hospital in Ashton-under-Lyne in September 2023.
Nurse C’s trousers were “around her knee area with her underwear on display”, while Dr Anjum was “tying up the cord of his trousers”, another nurse at the hospital told a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing.
The consultant anaesthetist had asked another nursing colleague to monitor the male patient, who was under general anaesthetic, telling her he needed to go to the bathroom.
But instead, Dr Anjum, 44, went to another operating theatre – also used as a storage room – where sexual activity took place.
The patient came to no harm, but Dr Anjum, who was gone for eight minutes, was dismissed in February 2024 following an internal investigation.
In a bid to resume his medical career in the UK, he told an MPTS disciplinary tribunal last week that he would never repeat his “one-off error of judgement”.
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It was, he said, “quite shameful, to say the least. I only have myself to blame. I let down everybody, not just my patient and myself but the trust and how it would look. I let down my colleagues who gave me a lot of respect”.
The tribunal ruled on Monday that Dr Anjum “had put his own interests before those of the patient and his colleagues” and the incident involving Nurse C “had the potential to distract Dr Anjum… and he may not have been able to give his full attention to the patient’s care”.
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Chairwoman Rebecca Miller said on Monday his actions, while they did not harm the patient’s safety, were “significant enough to amount to misconduct that was serious”.
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But she said she was satisfied that Dr Anjum was determined not to repeat his past misconduct and considered the risk of repetition to be “very low”.
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Mrs Miller said the tribunal “was satisfied that this public finding of serious misconduct was sufficient to maintain public confidence in the profession and proper professional standards, and that there was not a necessity to make a finding of impaired fitness to practise for that purpose”.
Dr Anjum, who had admitted engaging in sexual activity with Nurse C and that his actions had the potential to put his patient at risk, will face no punishment, but may have a warning placed on his registration.
