AC-2024-MAN-000469 - [2025] EWHC 2049 (Admin)

The fitness to practise hearing in relation to the Appellant took place between 16 and 31 October 2023 and 8 and 18 July 2024. The Tribunal considered the following allegations made against the Appellant (“the Allegation”):

“That being registered under the Medical Act 1983 (as amended):

1.

On 9 August 2019, whilst providing anaesthetic care (‘the Procedure’) to Patient A you:

It was agreed that the resources at the hospital on the day of the incident were significantly stretched and that the Appellant had helped in another theatre immediately prior to the operation on Patient A.

It was also agreed that Patient A presented with several issues which complicated the anaesthetic procedure: he was clinically obese, needle phobic and was being anesthetised on the operating table rather than in the anaesthetic room. All eye-witnesses and Patient A gave evidence that he became distressed and started moving fast and unpredictably whilst being anaesthetised. Both experts agreed that thrashing around and removing the face mask during gaseous induction presented a serious risk to life for the patient.

There was no physical evidence on Patient A of an assault such as bruising, redness or pain. However Patient A said he did not bruise easily and there was no expert evidence on bruising. Although the witness evidence was that Patient A was fully conscious at the time of the alleged slaps there was no evidence that he had cried out in pain when assaulted.

The Appellant’s case was that he had not slapped Patient A. However, he accepted that this may have been how his actions in attempting to keep Patient A’s head still and the mask in position, whilst he was still in the “excitatory” (or agitation) phase, had been perceived: see his 2019 statement to the police, which he adopted in his witness statement for the fitness to practise proceedings.

The central issues during the hearing related to the sequence of events in the operating theatre, where various people were standing and who had tried to cannulate the patient for intravenous induction.

The Tribunal heard witness evidence from Patient A, Dr Kathryn Singh (an anaesthetic registrar), Michael Cousins (an Operations Department Practitioner, “ODP”), Gillians Crooks (a nursing sister), Cara Baker (a consultant surgeon) and the Appellant, as well as expert evidence from Dr Alistair McCrirrick and Professor Jonathan Hardman (consultant anaesthetists).

The Tribunal also considered documentary evidence which included the anaesthetic record, documents from the police investigation and an extensive bundle of unchallenged testimonials about the Appellant. These showed that he was a particularly skilled and well-respected clinician who had had a very successful career in the NHS and in private practice.