Children’s brain doctor high on date-rape drug faces being struck off
A SENIOR NHS children’s brain doctor who was exposed by The Mail on Sunday for using hard drugs when he was on call for his young patients has been suspended by the doctors’ watchdog.
The General Medical Council (GMC) took the action against Dr Colin Ferrie last week as it launched its own investigation into the consultant paediatric neurologist.
It is the start of a process which could see him struck off.
It follows our exposé of the doctor, based at Leeds General Infirmary, in which we revealed how he took cocaine and crystal meth as well as the date-rape drug GHB and mephedrone.
The GMC called a meeting of its Interim Orders Panel (IOP), which convened at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in Manchester and decided to withdraw Scots-born Dr Ferrie’s registration while it investigated.
The IOP, which consists of a threemember panel with a legal assistant, has the power to suspend a doctor for up to 18 months while their case is looked into, but has to review it every six months.
A spokesman for the GMC said: ‘The IOP acts to protect the public, where it is in the public interest or where it is in the doctor’s own interests. It means he can’t practise as a doctor until the investigation is completed.
‘We would like to be able to call all relevant witnesses so we can fully investigate this matter.
‘This is something that we take very seriously.’
The General Medical Council has approached The Mail on Sunday and asked for our evidence.
Earlier this month, we published photographs of the highly respected consultant snorting lines of cocaine and swigging the powerful party drug GHB just an hour before he was ‘on call’ for vulnerable young patients. We have since been contacted by other concerned friends of the 51-year-old medic with evidence that his drug-taking has been chronic for several years and includes the highly addictive Class A substance crystal meth.
West Yorkshire Police have launched their own investigation into his actions and the GMC admitted that its inquiry would have to follow that.
The investigation will feature two case examiners – one medical and one non-medical – who will review the evidence and decide whether to conclude the case with no further action, issue a warning, agree undertakings to address the problem, or refer the case to the MPTS for a fitness to practice hearing.
The MPTS is part of the GMC and accountable directly to Parliament.
Its panel will decide at a public hearing whether Dr Ferrie’s fitness to practice is impaired.
If it rules that it is, the panel will decide whether to place conditions on the doctor’s registration, suspend him or strike him off the medical register for anything from five years to life.
Dr Ferrie will be represented at the hearing by the Medical Defence Union (MDU) which helps its member doctors with legal representation when they face hearings.
A spokeswoman for the MDU said: ‘I can confirm that Dr Ferrie is a member of the MDU but I understand that he doesn’t wish to make a comment at the moment.’
A spokeswoman for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which suspended Dr Ferrie from duties earlier this month, said he had been assigned a case manager to oversee the internal inquiry.
Dr Ferrie could also turn for help to the British Medical Association’s ‘doctors for doctors’ scheme, which provides dedicated, confidential emotional support to any doctor involved in a fitness to practice case.