In this case, the appellant doctor was accused of dishonestly submitted timesheets claiming for work undertaken when he knew he had not worked until the shift finish times claimed on the timesheets.
The Tribunal concluded that the only appropriate and proportionate sanction that would adequately reflect the seriousness of this misconduct and be sufficient to uphold the overarching objective to maintain public confidence in the profession and uphold proper professional standards, was one of erasure.
The appellant doctor sought to appeal the sanction, briefly, on the grounds that the MPT’s findings of dishonesty of the allegations were wrong and/or unfair, the finding of misconduct was wrong because it was unfair to find that the doctor had gained financial advantage by his misconduct, when this had not been pleaded at the facts stage, the finding of current impairment was based on possible risk to patients, which was tenuous and was not pleaded and the direction of erasure was wrong in that it was based upon a finding of financial gain and/or gave undue weight to immaterial matters.
Mr Justice Julian Knowles partly upheld the appeal, saying, in relation to ground 2 (finding of dishonesty (allegation [6(a)]) wrongly made or otherwise unfair):
“…if the allegation of dishonesty had been based on an allegation that Dr Ibrahim had falsely claimed on 10 May 2019 to have had a genuine belief that he had approval, then the GMC’s case would have been on more certain ground. The italicised words in [73] and [75] were a clear rejection of the suggestion that Dr Ibrahim had had any such genuine belief.
But that was not the GMC’s case. It alleged dishonesty on the falsity of something which Dr Ibrahim had never said, and never said he said.
On all other grounds, he turned down the appeal, ultimately saying:
“I consider that because the doctor’s dishonesty in this case was so prolonged and repeated, and because it involved potential risks to patient safety on a number of occasions, the sanction of erasure was not wrong, but was appropriate and necessary in the public interest.
“For these reasons, this appeal is dismissed save in relation to the allegation of dishonesty in [6(a)], which is quashed for the reasons given earlier.”
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