The High Court suspended Dr Z’s registration as a medical practitioner after finding that he breached three undertakings given to the court by treating and prescribing for a former online-service patient on two occasions in February and March 2023.
The orders followed a renewed application by the Medical Council under section 60 of the Medical Practitioners Act 2007. The Council had asked the court to suspend Dr Z’s registration, prohibit him from practising medicine and make related orders. The court said it would grant the orders sought in the Council’s notice of motion.
On 2 February, the court had accepted undertakings instead of making suspension orders. Dr Z undertook to treat only patients of the hospital where he worked, or another hospital approved in writing by the Council; to prescribe only to hospital patients under consultant supervision; and not to contact people he had prescribed for while working with an online doctors’ service.
The Council’s application relied on prescriptions issued to patient A on 17 February and 20 March. Dr Z’s affidavit acknowledged that he examined the patient and prescribed for her on both occasions, although she had not checked in or become a hospital patient. The court found that he treated and prescribed for someone who was not a hospital patient, without consultant supervision, and communicated with a person he had prescribed for through the online service. It held that each occasion breached all three undertakings.
The court noted that Dr Z said the prescriptions followed in-person examinations and were medically necessary. It also recorded that he said he had not intentionally breached the undertakings. The judge did not make definitive findings about the precise circumstances behind the encounters or the reasons for Dr Z’s conduct, saying those matters could be examined in any fitness-to-practise inquiry. The court also made no finding about whether Dr Z received payment for the prescriptions.
The judge said the undertakings could no longer be relied on, given the breaches. In deciding that suspension was necessary to protect the public, the court considered that the conduct was closely connected to medical practice and involved controlled drugs. The judge emphasised that the factual circumstances remained to be examined in a proper inquiry. The court’s decision concerned the interim protection sought under section 60, not a final determination of the complaint or Dr Z’s fitness to practise.