Published 11 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2373
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2373

News

GP admits overprescribing painkillers to patients on rehabilitation wards

Clare Dyer

1 BMJ

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A GP admitted prescribing "potentially hazardous" doses of painkilling drugs to elderly patients on the first day of a fitness to practise hearing at the General Medical Council this week.

Jane Barton is accused of overprescribing and other failings in her treatment of 12 patients at Gosport War Memorial Hospital in Hampshire, when she was a part time clinical assistant at the hospital between 1996 and 1999.

Patients were left in "drug induced comas" after overprescriptions of painkillers and sedatives, Tom Kark, the GMC’s lawyer, told the fitness to practise panel. "There was, we say, a series of failures that led to patients being overmedicated and unnecessarily anaesthetised," he added.

The wards Dr Barton worked on provided care for elderly patients who expected to be rehabilitated, he said. Her prescriptions for drugs, including diamorphine, allowed nurses to substantially raise the doses as they saw fit.

Dr Barton admitted that she . . . [Full text of this article]


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