Clare Dyer

A Bristol GP jailed for damaging petrol pumps in a climate protest has seen his suspension from the UK medical register extended after refusing to concede his actions were wrong. Patrick Hart took part in numerous climate protests before disabling and damaging petrol pumps at an Esso station in Essex with a hammer and paint in 2022. He was sentenced to 12 months in prison for criminal damage in January 2025. While in prison, he was visited by the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, who condemned the UK’s punitive approach to climate protesters as “blatantly disproportionate.”1 The UN envoy also accused medical regulator the General Medical Council (GMC) of “persecution or harassment of Dr Hart” and “astonishingly paradoxical reasoning” for referring him to the medical practitioners tribunal that would later suspend him. It would be “punishing …

A plastic surgeon who sent his partner two identifiable pictures from his mobile phone of a patient with an open wound has been suspended from the UK medical register for a second time.1 Isa Alalwani sent the images of the patient with a large open leg wound to his then partner in July 2022 to explain why he was busy and not responding to calls. A visual display unit showing patient identifiers could be seen in the images. Alalwani, who qualified from RCSI Medical University of Bahrain in 2013, was …

Some babies who died at the Countess of Chester Hospital could have been saved had the hospital notified police earlier of doctors’ suspicions that Lucy Letby was a killer, a public inquiry has concluded.1 As well as identifying a raft of failures at the hospital trust, the report recommended using digital devices to restrict access of insulin only to authorised people, installing baby monitors in all cots and incubators in neonatal units, and a system barring NHS managers dismissed for serious misconduct from moving to other NHS roles. Led by the appeal court judge Lady Justice Thirlwall, the inquiry found that hospital staff were unaware that the SUDIC (Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy and Childhood) protocol applied to babies who never left hospital, not just those who died at home. Letby is currently serving life imprisonment after being found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to kill seven others from June 2015 to June 2016.2 Unexplained deaths of newborns are rare and, had the protocol been followed, police would have been called after the death of Baby A in June 2015, the report found. That would have resulted in an independent and systemic investigation of the death, with input from the local authority and the police, it said, and the same should have happened …

A doctor in Guernsey revealed sensitive confidential medical information about one patient by taking a phone call while examining another patient, it has emerged. The breach of confidentiality was outlined in the latest report from Guernsey’s Office of the Data Protection Authority.1 This case came to light after the healthcare provider that employed the doctor reported the breach to the data protection regulator. The doctor remained in the examination room throughout the conversation, where the identifying details of the patient …

A vascular surgeon has been suspended from the UK medical register for nine months for publishing antisemitic social media posts.1 A medical practitioners tribunal found that posts made by Muhammad Khalil soon after the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel were antisemitic. Khalil, who qualified in Egypt in 2001, wrote five Instagram posts in October 2023 that were reported to the General Medical Council (GMC) and the police by the campaign group UK Lawyers for Israel. While the police decided to take no further action, the GMC brought him before the tribunal, alleging that the posts were objectively antisemitic, seriously offensive, and supportive of violence. Khalil’s posts identified him as a doctor and included photographs of him …

A GP who entered false data in 31 death certificates to reduce her workload has been suspended from the UK medical register for 10 months.1 Lea Cramsie admitted ticking the box to confirm that the deaths had been reported to the procurator fiscal when she knew they had not. This would exclude the deaths from being selected for random review by the Death Certification Review Service. The falsifications took place over nearly six months from early October 2024 to late February 2025 when Cramsie was working as a salaried GP for a Glasgow practice that provided care to patients living in nursing homes. Cramsie was reported to the General Medical Council …

A consultant in emergency medicine has been cleared of the sexual harassment of three female students and of “harassment related to sex” regarding a fourth.1 However, Adam Chesters was given a formal warning about his future conduct. Chesters, who works at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, was acting as an examiner or supervisor during demonstration sessions involving three of the students, referred to as A, B, and C. The fourth, D, was taking part in university lecture forums. All incidents occurred between 2022 and 2024. The tribunal found that he had abused his senior position in “manhandling” D, placing his hands on her …

A High Court judge has quashed findings by a medical practitioners’ tribunal that a GP’s examination of a patient was clinically indicated and not sexually motivated.1 Mr Justice Morris has now ordered the case of Chitlapalli Sathyanath to be heard by a new tribunal. Sathyanath, who has been a partner at a practice in Gosport, Hampshire, since 2005, had previously worked in oncology. He carried out an examination without offering a chaperone to the 53 year old woman, Patient A, who had previously had breast cancer and had been having persistent upper abdominal pain for about three years. The patient reported him to the police, who …

Two doctors who helped overseas medical graduates “cheat” in exams designed to prove their safety to practise in the UK have been struck off the medical register. Hamed Salehi was the director and Elmira Yaghmaei a tutor at Common Stations, a tutorial service coaching overseas doctors to pass the Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board (PLAB) part 2 test qualifying them to be registered to work in the UK. Salehi qualified in Iran and Yaghmaei in Romania. The PLAB part 2 exam is a series of practical tests involving 18 clinical stations with different scenarios. These are highly confidential, and candidates are told that as part of the terms and conditions of the test they must not share details of the stations. But a …

A consultant given a formal warning after “manhandling” female students now faces an appeal by the General Medical Council (GMC). The regulator will ask the High Court to quash a medical practitioners tribunal finding last month that Adam Chesters’ fitness to practise is not impaired. 1 The tribunal came to that conclusion despite its decision that his behaviour was an abuse of his senior position.2 Chesters, who was working as a consultant in emergency medicine at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, was cleared by the tribunal of the sexual harassment of three female medical students and of “harassment related to sex” regarding a fourth. He was …