British Eventing's Regular On Duty Doctor Struck Off

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Eddy Phipps

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The on-duty doctor who treated me negligently following my fall at Borde Hill Horse Trials, where I sustained life changing injuries, has been struck off. As a direct result of my own investigation I discovered that he had been regularly attending BE events in an official capacity as a Medical Officer, despite not having a license to practice medicine, for 15 months. I reported him to the GMC who suspended him immediately and carried out a thorough investigation which has resulted in Doctor Charitou being struck off.

Very sadly, despite being a regular competitor at Borde Hill horse trials for a number of years, the organisers never felt it appropriate to offer any form of empathy or support.

It is paramount that the safety of competitors is the primary focus in a high-risk sport and must put ahead of Event’s reputation.
 
The GMC advised of the following:

"The hearing has now ended and the Tribunal decided to erase the doctor’s name from the medical register and impose an immediate suspension. This means that the Tribunal found Dr Charitou’s conduct to be fundamentally incompatible with continued registration and he now cannot work as a doctor in the UK."

You are right he could appeal but I think this in unlikely as he didn't engage in the GMC's proceedings.
 
I am sorry, it is not clear to me. Are you saying that BE hired a doctor who was not licenced to practice? Are you saying that because of this he/she was struck off?

I can only presume that the BE people concerned did not know that this doctor was not licenced. I presume the doctor was qualified?

Whatever the whys and wherefores, I am sorry that you had a life changing injury at an event.
 
At the time of my accident Doctor Charitou was a registered doctor but didn't have a license to practise medicine in the UK. There is no dispute that the treatment given to me at the event was negilient

After I advised the GMC that Doctor Charitou was practicing medicine in the UK, he was suspended immediately pending a full investigation.

I was not the only BE competitor to come forward with concerns at the level of medical care provided by this doctor.

On the July 18 he was erased from the medical register. He does have 28 days to appeal, however he has not made contact with the GMC in over 2 years and didn't attend his own hearing.

British Eventing have very clear rules that the medical officer attending any BE event must be licensed to practise medicine in the UK. BE have put the responsibility on the event organisers to ensure that the correct medical cover is available.

My major concern is for the safety of my fellow competitor, this is a high risk sport and part of our entry fee goes towards medical cover.
 
I am very sorry that you had an accident at an event and that you believe the treatment you received from the unregistered doctor was negligent. I can only imagine it leaves you wondering if you would have had a different outcome if the treatment had been different or if there had been a different doctor.


I also feel for the organisers, as I don't suspect they had any intention to engage a doctor who was not registered. I feel for them as I understand that it can be difficult to find a doctor to officiate within tight financial constraints. Not that I think this negates their oversight at engaging a doctor who is not registered, just that I don't think it will have been an intentional act.

I suspect the organisers may not have contacted you as they do not wish to say the wrong thing in law. You may find that they have been prohibited from contacting you by their insurance providers.


If this doctor was giving poor quality care then I am glad that he is now struck off. You are correct that the sport has its dangers, hence the medical cover being provided. I applaud BE as a whole for specifying a high level of medical cover/ambulance, 4WD medical cover etc to enable the sport to continue.

I do not know your situation, but hope you can improve and feel satisfied that you have protected other riders.
 
Seems he got all over the place during that time he was at Aston le Walls May 2016. His profile on linkedIn is "interesting.
 
Doctor Charitou lost his licence to practise on the 10th March 2015, my accident was at the end of May 2016 but I didn't investigate until I left hospital. On the 21st June 2016 I notified the GMC and BE of my findings. During this 15 month period dozens of BE events used him.

As a competitor I am really concerned that this doctor was allowed to continue for such a long time with no body checking his status.
 
How awful for you and well done for exposing him. Do you know why he lost his licence in March 2015?

I wonder whether he was working for BE legitimately before then and then just carried on when he was suspended. It would have been his responsibility to stop working. New employers check registrations etc but it is not commonw practice to check the same doc over and over again every time you use them. I was suspended briefly back in 2014 and had to let everyone know I was not able to offer clinical work in that time. Fortunately I had no case to answer so it did not last long but I can easily see how I could have just kept quiet.
 
I would suspect he had been working at BE events prior to losing his license and I totally agree it's so easy just to keep using the same doctor without rechecking. However as the checking of a doctor's status is so straightforward, it would be reassuring for competitors to know that this is done on a regular basis.
 
Add that information to the recent jailing of the person posing to be a nurse at Blenheim it does seem that BE needs to reconsider their procedures when engaging such important people.
 
ETA I'm not a medical doctor but work in a clinical role with the same need to be registered as a health professional as doctors. I'm sure no one really cares what I do but I don't like to mislead!!

So how often should registration be checked in a situation like this where BE employ some one... presumably they check registration and DBS when they sign a contract. But after that? Every year? Every event? What about on going contracts where you deliver services every day? How often should those employers check that their staff havd not lost their registration?
 
Ambers Echo said:
ETA I'm not a medical doctor but work in a clinical role with the same need to be registered as a health professional as doctors. I'm sure no one really cares what I do but I don't like to mislead!!

So how often should registration be checked in a situation like this where BE employ some one... presumably they check registration and DBS when they sign a contract. But after that? Every year? Every event? What about on going contracts where you deliver services every day? How often should those employers check that their staff havd not lost their registration?
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I work with clinical professionals (not in eventing) and we check GMC registration prior to commencement of clinical work on our behalf and annually thereafter.

I would have assumed that there would be some similar process for BE medics.
It always feels a bit like a box ticking exercise. Until it isn’t ....
 
ester said:
Add that information to the recent jailing of the person posing to be a nurse at Blenheim it does seem that BE needs to reconsider their procedures when engaging such important people.
Click to expand...

It is not the responsibility of BE it is entirely up to the organisers of any competition to source relevant "medical" cover. That cover can be provided by a paramedic in some instances or a Doctor/s in others. The medical team is generally organised by the chief medical officer at Blenheim. The bogus nurse came via the volunteers system that is run by the organisers of Blenheim and it was apparently not the first time she had pretended to be a nurse. There is more to this particular issue than I am willing or able to divulge. My OH provides medical cover at sporting events interestingly the medically qualified doctors get paid a nominal fee which is considerably less than what the paramedics get paid at the same events!
 
My concern is for the safety of competitors. BE have made it very clear in their rules that any doctor attending an event in an official capacity MUST have a license to practise medicine and that it is entirely the responsibility of the event organiser to ensure that they run within the rules. But who is ensuring that the organisers follow these guideline?
 
But organisers follow BE rules and regulations, that is why I said about their procedures because realistically surely it is an important enough issue that the governing body should make sure that the risk is minimised. If their own procedures do tell organisers to check registrations and they aren't there needs to be some sort of check in the system for that.

No it isn't the first time she pretended to be a nurse and I'm aware that she was a volunteer, I don't really see why either is relevant?
 
Totally agree checks should be in place, unfortunately there sadly doesn't appear to be any such procedure in place. I'm sure that no organiser deliberately means to break the rules however for me safety is paramount.
 
Velcrobum said:
It is not the responsibility of BE it is entirely up to the organisers of any competition to source relevant "medical" cover. That cover can be provided by a paramedic in some instances or a Doctor/s in others. The medical team is generally organised by the chief medical officer at Blenheim. The bogus nurse came via the volunteers system that is run by the organisers of Blenheim and it was apparently not the first time she had pretended to be a nurse. There is more to this particular issue than I am willing or able to divulge. My OH provides medical cover at sporting events interestingly the medically qualified doctors get paid a nominal fee which is considerably less than what the paramedics get paid at the same events!
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Slight side track - how did your OH get involved with providing the medical cover, I've just started as an F1 doctor so can't practice outside a hospital for another couple of years but once I'm allowed to practice independantly I'd love to start doing eventing cover.
 
Anyone interested in 2 tickets for the British Eventing this weekend season admission .
Admin remove if not allowed these are in aid of charity pm me
 
Its very simple to check whether someone is a registered nurse,
https://www.nmc.org.uk/registration/search-the-register/

And also a doctor,
https://www.gmc-uk.org/registration...to-the-medical-register/find-a-doctors-record
This is a basic check and would be part of their insurance requirements for H&S I would imagine for an event at that level. I can not imagine why it would not be done any way. If they are obtaining insurance under a group insurance there would be clear guidelines in place.
I have no do not know how doctors obtain insurance to practice out of the NHS, your liability is usually covered by your employer. I had to increase mine when I worked for a private company and theirs did not provide enough cover for professional liability.
 
I totally agree, it is so simple to find out the status of a doctor, so all the more surprising that Doctor Charitou attended dozens of BE events over a 15 month period without being checked. This is a high risk sport and competitors are at their most vulnerable after a serious accident, there must be a duty of care.
 
Honetpot, independent practitioners take out their own professional indemnity insurance. Costs a fortune but you can't practice without being insured.
 
At the time of my accident he was a registered doctor but without a license to practise in the UK. I would assume that it is highly unlikely that he was covered by any insurance as he was acting without a license. I did ask Borde Hill for their insurance details, but they ignored me.
 
No unfortunately not! - I've been completely ignored by Borde Hill. BE made it very clear that it is the organisers responsibility to ensure that the right medical cover is in place, but I've been unable to make contact with them!

My major concern is for safety in a high risk sport, but it would appear that reputation is more important.
 
Not really the same but,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-25715110
They also took the organisers to court under H&S
I used to do catering at shows and festivals and had to provide evidence of insurance up to £4millon. I also had to provide risk assessments and evidence of training. Sometimes these were checked through the local EHO.
The HT must have some insurance in place, perhaps if you have not already done so, time to go to injury lawyers for you and get them to chase the organisers. It may be worth contacting the H&S executive. If you were seriously injured they have inform them,http://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/reportable-incidents.htm
http://www.hse.gov.uk/event-safety/
 
Eddy Phipps said:
No unfortunately not! - I've been completely ignored by Borde Hill. BE made it very clear that it is the organisers responsibility to ensure that the right medical cover is in place, but I've been unable to make contact with them!

My major concern is for safety in a high risk sport, but it would appear that reputation is more important.
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I see from the BE website that you accident was in 2016. I am not usually one for taking any type of legal action, as I think it causes hurt and pain to all parties and the only people to benefit are the solicitors. However, you say that you have had life-changing injuries, and no one disputes that you had inappropriate care. I think there is a 3 year time limit on any type of claim, so in your case, if you think that the life changing element of the accident was due to the doctor, I would see a solicitor.

A letter sent, signed for, to the organisers is deemed to have been seen. I am not a solicitor, but one did explain that when I had to contact a company for a refund that they had been steadfastly refusing to acknowledge. There was also wording that would make the letter official as a request for a response, I can't remember what that is.


I guess you have to decide what your desired outcome is. Be that money to help you adapt to your changed life, or at assurances that things will be done differently in the future.

If, of course, the cause of the accident was you or your horse, and the mistreatment by the doctor was upsetting but incidental to your health outcome, then I would not contact a solicitor.

I hope you find peace with your situation one way or another.
 
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