Russell Square tube station [Ewan Munro]

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A CHILDREN’S doctor who was found guilty of using his wife’s travel card to avoid paying Tube fares should not have been suspended from work, a group representing the voice of frontline medics has said.

Dr James Ip, a consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital, was suspended for six months after being found guilty of using his wife’s free travel pass during the Covid pandemic.

But Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), a group that campaigns for a “learn not blame” culture within the NHS, say the suspension has deprived patients of a specialist doctor, and highlights “a disparity in the ethnic demographics” of medics who face sanctions.

Last year, Dr Ip was taken to court for failing to pay his Tube fare on 55 separate occasions, where he was fined £500.

A consultant paediatric cardiac anaesthetist, Dr Ip was then referred to a tribunal by the General Medical Council (GMC), the regulator responsible for upholding standards within medicine.

Despite describing Dr Ip as a “well-respected and a skilled clinician”, the tribunal found him guilty of “serious” dishonesty.

“This is not a case where the doctor poses a risk to the safety of a patient,” said tribunal chair Ruona Iguyovwe.

But it was found that Dr Ip had failed to promote public confidence in the medical profession and had fallen foul of professional standards.

But speaking to the New Journal this week, Dr Matthew Bigwood of DAUK said: “It was very disproportionate – the biggest thing is he’s not a risk to patients, so he doesn’t need to be taken away from patients. “And also he does a very niche job and so naturally it’s causing harm in that respect.

“This is not what the GMC is for. “The GMC should be for dangerous people that are going to cause harm to patients if they’re allowed to carry on because they’re dangerous people.”

Dr Bigwood highlighted the case of an eye surgeon who avoided suspension in 2016 for having an affair with a patient because it would deprive others in his care of a “uniquely talented” doctor.

“He happened to be Caucasian, and his crime was an affair with a patient, which is clearly much more dangerous than using someone’s [travel] pass, and he got away without a sanction,” said Dr Bigwood. “We think there may well be inherent biases at the GMC which probably needs looking into.”

In a written statement submitted to the tribunal, Dr Ip said he began using his wife’s travel pass at the start of the first national lockdown.

“I felt… isolated on a daily basis at that time, often being the only passenger on an entire underground train,” he said. “At the time, Transport for London was reimbursing the Congestion Charge for NHS workers, and Camden Council had suspended on-street parking charges also for NHS workers. I remember feeling a sense of unfairness that NHS workers using the underground had been overlooked in terms of these concessions.”

He added: “This mixture of… fatigue and sense of injustice of having to pay to go to work during a pandemic led me to justify using my wife’s [pass]. I see now that this rationalisation was illogical, immoral and wrong.”

The GMC did not comment on the case but said that Dr Ip has the right to appeal the tribunal’s determination.

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