GP gets eight month suspension after clinical errors in treatment of four patients

An experienced GP and practice partner has been suspended from the UK medical register for eight months after a tribunal found that he had committed serious clinical errors in the treatment of four patients.

Simon Caswell was reported to the General Medical Council in 2017 by his practice partner and by a locum GP who was acting as the practice manager at the Beehive Surgery in Bolton. Caswell represented himself before the medical practitioners tribunal in Manchester.

He was found to have inappropriately increased a patient’s fentanyl patch from 50 to 100 μg in one step, when the British National Formulary advises changing dosage by increments of no more than 12.5 …