GP is struck off for “utterly deplorable” litany of treatment failures

A senior GP has been struck off the UK medical register for an “utterly deplorable” litany of treatment failures and for “reprehensible” professional conduct that included leaving patients in the care of unprepared trainee doctors and operating without adequate professional insurance.

At least two patients suffered “grave consequences” from inaction on the part of Surraiya Zia, including a man whose deteriorating condition was effectively ignored for six months, despite the fact that he “presented to Dr Zia frequently, sometimes up to three times within a week, with red flag symptoms,” said Samantha Gray, chairing the medical practitioners tribunal.

The patient was eventually persuaded to seek private magnetic resonance imaging by his family. This showed widespread stage IV lung cancer that took his life within weeks. Another patient, who was in remission from ovarian cancer, underwent chest radiography after a fall, which revealed a suspicious nodule in the lung. …