‘Britain’s worst GP’ – who bit a police officer and was caught drink-driving TWICE – avoids being suspended after arguing she could make a ‘positive contribution’ to ailing service

• EXCL: GP was caught drink driving after suspicious Tesco staff called the police
• READ MORE:  Alcoholic A&E doctor who attacked nurses and police struck off

A GP convicted of a string of alcohol-fuelled offences – including one where she bit a police officer – has avoided suspension, MailOnline can reveal.

Dr Jane Hornsey, in her 60s, was caught drink-driving in 2018. She escaped being sent to jail but was banned from getting behind the wheel for three years and fined £120.

Regulators wanted to suspend her considering the medic’s history of offending and seriousness of the latest incident.

But she avoided being struck off after arguing that she was already punished by the courts and ‘didn’t deserve’ another sanction.

Instead, Dr Hornsey, previously dubbed ‘Britain’s worst GP’, and who local press reported previously worked in the town of Keighley in Yorkshire, was given a series of conditions to abide by.

Dr Jane Hornsey, was caught drink-driving in 2018. She escaped jail but was banned from getting behind the wheel for three years and fined £120

In a review of those conditions last week, Dr Hornsey argued she could make a ‘positive contribution’ to Britain’s overstretched GP services.

‘She also feels that she has a useful role to play,’ according to documents submitted to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS).

‘She said that she has discussed with GP colleagues the stresses and difficulties GPs currently face.’

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) gave her a fresh set of conditions to meet for the next 12 months.

This includes making Dr Hornsey, a mother-of-four who qualified in 1982, undertake an approved GP returners scheme to ensure her clinical skills were up to date.

Other conditions include a limit on the number of hours she can work and that she must be supervised at work at all times.

Dr Hornsey, previously dubbed ‘Britain’s worst GP’, and who local press reported previously worked at North Street Surgery in Keighley

But the MPTS added the decision between conditions and a full-blown suspension was ‘finely balanced’. Dr Hornsey’s conditions will be reviewed in a year.

She wasn’t worked as a GP since 2016 and has had limitations imposed on how she could work since 2014 following a drunk and disorderly conviction.

An ‘intoxicated’ Dr Hornsey’s entered an A&E department the previous year and launched abusive ‘rants’ at staff and police. She also spooked members of the public by ‘going into the cubicles of other patients declaring yourself to be a doctor’.

Dr Hornsey herself called her conduct ‘disgraceful’ and said it had made ‘resolute not to drink again’.

The MPTS at the time issued her a three-year conditions of practice order, noting anything further would be ‘disproportionate’.

READ MORE: Alcoholic A&E doctor who was jailed for string of violent attacks on nurses and police officers struck off despite pleading to go back to NHS 

The medic has previously detailed how she battled an alcohol addiction and previously pleaded for another chance ‘to demonstrate how much medicine is to me’

Dr Hornsey’s first drink related offence occurred in 2009 in an incident involving a violent altercation with a police officer.

On October 18 that year, she crashed her car, and was then seen to be ‘clearly intoxicated and staggering around’.

After a call from a passing motorist, police attended the scene but upon asking Dr Hornsey to do a breath test she refused. When an officer tried to restrain her, she bit him on his forearm.

Bradford Crown Court heard in 2010 how the police officer was forced to strike her twice in the head and use capsicum spray to eventually restrain her.

It was also noted that the officer even needed hospital care for his injuries.

Dr Hornsey was convicted of both assault and drink driving in relation to the incident.

Her most recent conviction related to an incident on July 20, 2018 

She arrived at a Tesco in Skipton, North Yorkshire and purchased a bottle of wine. However, Dr Hornsey stank so strongly of alcohol that staff, noting she had arrived by car, made the decision to call police.

Upon questioning by officers, she admitted to consuming two to three glasses of wine following an argument with her mother before driving to the store. A blood sample, taken at the time, later revealed she was nearly twice over the legal limit.

She was subsequently charged and convicted for drink driving.

Subsequent MPTS regulatory proceedings were held in 2020 where the tribunal heard the medic ‘could easily have killed someone whilst driving’.

The tribunal at the time said Dr Hornsey ‘did not seem to appreciate the seriousness of her actions’ and that she became ‘irritated and hostile’ during questioning as well as expressing ‘no apology or remorse’.

In the latest round with the MPTS, Dr Hornsey acknowledged she had not sought employment since the 2020 tribunal due to Covid and personal reasons heard behind closed doors.

But she said she still wanted to work as a GP, stating ‘being a doctor is part of her identity.’

GP workforce data, represented in this graph up to May 2023 shows there are 27,200 fully-qualified GPs in England. This is down from 27,627 one year earlier. GP numbers peaked at 29,537 in March 2016

The tribunal noted Dr Hornsey still did not apologise for the events that led up to her 2018 conviction, and instead ‘appears to attribute responsibility for her actions to NHS England’.

They also noted that, save for 10-month period of part time work in 2016, she had not worked as medic since 2009, and her clinical skills may have deteriorated in that time, something they said she didn’t appear to appreciate.

NHS data show there were 27,302 fully qualified GPs working in England as of September this year, the latest figures available.

This is 2,000 fewer than the figure recorded in the same month in 2018.

GPs themselves report being overwhelmed by patient demand.

Some family doctors are now responsible for up 2,600 patients each in some areas, up from an average 1,900 in 2016.

Under recommendations implemented by the BMA and European Union of General Practitioners, GPs today should not deliver more than 25 appointments a day to ensure safe care.

But some doctors are reportedly having to cram in nearly 60 patients per day.

Ministers have also silently binned a promise to hire 6,000 more GPs, which was a major part of Boris Johnson’s election-winning manifesto.

Patient satisfaction with GP services has, as a result of the appointment crisis, also plunged to its lowest level on record.

Source: Read Full Article