Doctor must be supervised after he mistreated patients
HIS FITNESS TO PRACTISE WAS DETERMINED TO BE IMPAIRED BY MISCONDUCT CASE TRIBUNAL
A DOCTOR who mistreated nine patients at a former GP surgery in Carlton has been sanctioned.
The cases of mistreatment between April and May 2016 included allowing examinations to be done by staff who were not adequately trained and inappropriately prescribing drugs.
Dr Sylvester Nyatsuro was in charge at Willows Medical Centre, which was repossessed in October 2016 after a healthcare assistant posed as a doctor and carried out internal examinations.
It had 3,600 patients registered to a GP with just one full-time doctor and one GP locum, and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) suspended services because of how it was being run.
A total of 30 allegations were made by the General Medical Council (GMC) against Dr Nyatsuro, and 26 of these were either admitted by Dr Nyatsuro or found proven by a Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal (MPTS).
His fitness to practice was determined to be impaired during a tribunal at the MPTS centre in Manchester due to misconduct, and it was decided that he should be sanctioned.
The sanctions given are conditions for 18 months on his registration.
These include telling the GMC relevant information within a certain timeframe; only working in a group practice setting where there are a minimum of two GP partners or employed GPS (excluding himself); only working as a salaried or locum GP; and that he must be supervised in all of his posts by a clinical supervisor plus more.
Andrew Lewis, tribunal chair, said: “The tribunal could not identify any exceptional circumstances which would justify taking no action in this case.
“It concluded that it would not be sufficient, proportionate or in the public interest to take no action.
“The tribunal found that the misconduct in this case arose from issues around Dr Nyatsuro’s performance as a doctor and a manager.
“The most serious of his failings arose in the specific area of management and supervision.
“The tribunal has already indicated why it found that Dr Nyatsuro has good insight and a further period of supervision is likely to be the most appropriate way of confirming that his remediation has been successful.
“The tribunal found that he has demonstrated a willingness and potential to respond to remediation and retraining by the successful completion of postgraduate study and the examination necessary to satisfy National Health England that he can return to practice.
“For those reasons, the tribunal found that conditions would be appropriate, workable and sufficient to the protect the public.
“The tribunal also bore in mind that there is a public interest in assisting willing and competent doctors back into clinical practice, if this can be done without putting patients or the wider public interest at risk. The tribunal therefore found that conditions, properly formulated, would be sufficient to uphold public confidence if they were formulated in a way that restricted Dr Nyatsuro’s ability to play any role in the management of a practice with all that implied about his status and potentially his earnings.
“Having borne in mind the gravity of the misconduct and the principle of proportionality, the tribunal determined that conditions were appropriate, proportionate, workable and measurable. The tribunal determined that the length of the conditions should be 18 months and a review hearing will convene shortly before the end of the period of conditional registration, unless an early review is sought.”
The case has now concluded, with a review hearing in 18 months’ time.