A doctor who left a patient during an operation to have sex with a nurse has been allowed to continue practicing.
Dr Suhail Anjum, 44, and the unnamed nurse were caught in a ‘compromising position’ by a ‘shocked’ colleague at Tameside Hospital who walked in on the pair.
He had left the surgery for eight minutes on a ‘bathroom break’ but instead had sex in another operating theatre in September 2023.
Dr Anjum, a consultant anaesthetist, had asked another nurse to monitor his patient, who was under general anaesthetic, so he could use the toilet at the Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, hospital.
A member of staff then walked in on Nurse C ‘with her trousers around her knee area with her underwear on display’ and saw Dr Anjum ‘tying up the cord of his trousers’, the MPTS hearing was told.
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The patient came to no harm, but the doctor was dismissed in February 2024 after an internal investigation.
During a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing yesterday, it ruled that Dr Anjum was at a ‘very low’ risk of repeating his past misconduct and did not sanction him.
Dr Anjum admitted his behaviour was ‘shameful’ as he gave evidence.
He said: ‘It was 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.’
He has also admitted knowing the nurse was ‘likely to be nearby’ when he left his patient, and that his actions had the potential to put the man at risk.
The anaesthetist however stated his intention to resume his career in the UK after his family had relocated to Pakistan where he worked as a doctor.
He also promised there would never be a repeat of a ‘one-off error of judgment’.
On Monday, the tribunal said Dr Anjum ‘had put his own interests before those of the patient and his colleagues’.
The chairwoman Rebecca Miller said his actions were ‘significant enough to amount to misconduct that was serious’.
However she accepted that the doctor was determined not to repeat his past misconduct and considered the risk of repetition to be ‘very low’.
Miller added: ‘The tribunal considered that members of the public and the profession would understand the high level of scrutiny to which Dr Anjum had been subjected, and that a finding of serious misconduct would weigh heavily upon him.
‘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 was not sanctioned by the tribunal, which will meet again today to decide where to issue a warning on his registration.
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