Former Bassetlaw Hospital doctor sent female patient, aged 14, Facebook request

Dr Abdulkhaled Ahmed searched for the young girl’s account and sent the request after a consultation with her in February 2015 while working at the hospital as a locum.

It followed a string of incidents at Salford Hospital a few months before after the doctor accessed another female patient’s medical records to send her Whatsapp messages and a Facebook friend request.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service heard in October how after a consultation with the patient in November 2014 Dr Ahmed sent her a number of ‘sexual’ messages on Whatsapp.

In one - referencing pictures from her Facebook account which he found after finding her second name from her medical records - he wrote: “You seem fit”.

Others included ‘nice body’, ‘I want you badly’ and ‘you must have sweet taste with that much sugar in your body’.

The tribunal found with regard to Dr Ahmed’s friend request to a 14-year-old girl at Bassetlaw Hospital he ‘continued to try and justify that there could have been a credible reason for viewing (her) Facebook account’.

While giving evidence the locum had claimed the Facebook request was sent ‘accidentally’ or ‘inadvertently’.

While addressing the circumstances surrounding his Whatsapp messages at Salford Hospital the tribunal expressed concern at the way in which Dr Ahmed ‘appears to view women, both colleagues and patients’.

In his evidence Dr Ahmed admitted it was ‘usual’ for him to send messages of this kind - adding he had sent similar messages to female colleagues in the past, specifically citing his nurse colleagues in Derby.

Louise Kitchen, a lawyer for the General Medical Council, described Dr Ahmed’s misconduct ‘fundamentally incompatible with being a doctor’ and ‘a serious departure from good medical practice’ - and pressed the tribunal to ‘erase’ Dr Ahmed’s medical registration.

However the tribunal - noting that the doctor had since recognised the seriousness of his misconduct in relation to both cases - imposed a two-month suspension.

Having already been suspended for four months while the investigation was ongoing Dr Ahmed’s right to practice was suspended for a further two months.

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