By Paul Britton

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The fitness to practice of a doctor who had sex with a nurse in an operating theatre while a patient was under anaesthetic is not impaired, a medical tribunal has ruled after a hearing. The tribunal will reconvene on Tuesday to consider whether it is necessary to impose a warning on married father-of-three Dr Suhail Anjum’s registration, it said. In a judgement issued on Monday, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) said ‘serious misconduct’ on his part had been found. But it said Dr Anjum was ‘at very low risk’ of repeating the misconduct. No sanction will be imposed on him as a result. The ruling added: “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. Never miss a story with the MEN’s daily Catch Up newsletter – get it in your inbox by signing up here “The Tribunal therefore determined, after careful consideration of the overarching objective, that Dr Anjum’s current fitness to practise was not impaired. “Given Dr Anjum’s remediation, insight, and the negligible risk of repetition, the Tribunal concluded that there was no necessity to make a finding of impaired fitness to practise in order to protect the public.” It said it found his ‘inappropriate behaviour amounted to serious misconduct’ and fell ‘far below’ expected standards. What he did would also ‘be considered deplorable’ by other professional practitioners, added the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service. Dr Anjum faced the misconduct hearing following the incident at Tameside Hospital. The hearing was told Dr Anjum, 44, was seen in a ‘compromising position’ with the nurse while taking a break. The consultant anaesthetist was seen ‘tying up’ his trousers while the nurse had her trousers ‘around her knees with her underwear on display’. Dr Anjum ‘admitted all the allegations’, the hearing in Manchester was told. The tribunal has also now found all of them to be proven. Andrew Malloy, representing the General Medical Council, told the panel that on September 16, 2023, Dr Anjum left a patient under the care of Nurse SK, an ‘experienced anaesthetic nurse’ at the ‘halfway point’ of the procedure to take a ‘short break’. A few minutes later another nurse, referred to as Nurse NT, walked into theatre eight, which was often used as a ‘cut-through’ by staff, and saw Dr Anjum and a colleague referred to as Nurse C ‘in a compromising position’. Mr Malloy said: “She described seeing Nurse C with trousers round her about her knees with her underwear on display and Dr Anjum in the process of tying up the cord on his trousers. Nurse NT was shocked and very quickly walked through the theatre before returning to theatre five.” Dr Anjum, who qualified as an anaesthetist in his native Pakistan in 2004 before moving to the UK in 2011, returned to the theatre and finished the procedure. He took a break knowing nurse C was ‘likely to be nearby’ and was away for eight minutes, the hearing was told. The patient, who was undergoing keyhole surgery, was unharmed, but Dr Anjum admitted his actions ‘had the potential to put them at risk’. Nurse NT later reported the incident to her manager and following an internal investigation Dr Anjum, who had worked at Tameside and Glossop NHS Trust since 2015, left the hospital in February 2024. He has since returned to Pakistan. Giving evidence, Dr Anjum said the incident took place at a ‘difficult time’ when his youngest daughter was still a baby after being born prematurely. He also described the incident as ‘shameful’ and a ‘one-off error of judgement’. He added: “It was embarrassing. I let down everybody – my patient, myself, the trust. I don’t know how and why it happened but I wish I could reverse it. It was the lowest point of my career and I am very sorry for that. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Many things clouded my judgement. I only have myself to blame.” Join the Manchester Evening News WhatsApp group HERE The tribunal determined that Dr Anjum ‘had put his own interests before those of the patient and his colleagues’ and the incident involving Nurse C ‘had the potential to distract Dr Anjum… and he may not have been able to give his full attention to the patient’s care’. Tribunal chairwoman Rebecca Miller said his actions, while they did not harm the patient’s safety, were ‘significant enough to amount to misconduct that was serious’. But she said she was satisfied that Dr Anjum was determined not to repeat his past misconduct and considered the risk of repetition to be ‘very low’. The MPTS runs hearings that make independent decisions about whether doctors, physician associates and anaesthesia associates are fit to practise in the UK. It operates separately from the investigatory role of the General Medical Council (GMC). It runs hearings on cases where the GMC is concerned that patient safety, or the public’s confidence in doctors, may be at risk.