Struck-off OMP loses his High Court appeal

One of the country’s top judges has dismissed a challenge by an ophthalmic medical practitioner against the General Medical Council’s (GMC) decision to strike him off for serious professional misconduct.

Dr Abdur Razzaq who practised at Eagle Eyes Opticians, Wandsworth, signed NHS optical vouchers certifying that he had tested the sight of patients.

However, the GMC found that in fact he had not carried out the tests. Striking him off it branded his conduct as dishonest, an abuse of his professional position, and said it had been done with the intention of defrauding the NHS (News, September 9).

At London’s High Court this week Mr Justice Stanley Burnton upheld the strike off order and dismissed Razzaq’s appeal.

He said that Razzaq had faced allegations that on three occasions he had signed NHS optical vouchers for patients, certifying that he had tested their sight, when in fact he had not done so.

Razzaq was struck off after the GMC’s Fitness to Practice Panel found two of the allegations proved. One incident was in September 2000 and involved an 18-year old female patient who had sought to buy coloured fashion contact lenses. She was adamant that no eyesight test was carried out on her.

The other incident was in October 2000. It involved a 13-year old boy, whose mother gave evidence that her son had never had any eye trouble and had never been taken to the opticians.

However, Razzaq claimed that the evidence before the panel did not justify its findings against him, and that the advice given to it by its legal assessor was ‘inappropriate or insufficient or wrong’.

This week, though, the judge ruled that the Panel had been ‘fully entitled’ to find that the allegations had been proved.

There was, he said, no suggestion that the penalty imposed was inappropriate, if the findings were upheld.