Doctor suspended after sexually harassing colleague at Wellingborough's Isebrook Hospital

A doctor who was found to have sexually harassed a colleague while at work has been suspended for three months.

Dr David Darby was working at the Isebrook Hospital in Wellingborough when he asked the woman if she was menopausal, if she still ovulated and about her vaginal secretions.

Dr Darby was also found to have told the woman in June 2017 that: “If you lose a stone, I will give you a massage”, or words to that effect.

A panel said he still had ‘not yet demonstrated that he accepts responsibility for sexually harassing a colleague’ and had instead ‘offered apologies for creating a situation during which [the woman] supposedly misinterpreted his actions’.

The woman told investigators that she was ‘absolutely shocked at what he was saying’, had been ‘embarrassed’ and told him: “You can’t really ask those sorts of questions.”

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) panel said Dr Darby had been found to have been responsible for ‘serious breaches’ of good medical practice.

It said suspension would have ‘a deterrent effect and could be used to send out a signal to the doctor about what is regarded as behaviour unbefitting a registered doctor.’

Dr Darby said he had been unable to practise medicine for three-and-a-half years because of the proceedings and that he would have been able to treat about 8,700 patients in that time.

He said any long suspension would have meant that patients would suffer and that he was ‘very sorry…for what he had caused’.

Dr Darby said he was willing to take a course on professional boundaries.

Paul Williams, for the General Medical Council (GMC), said on Tuesday that permanently erasing Dr Darby from the medical register would have been disproportionate but that just placing conditions on his employment would have been insufficient.

The panel found the complaint was an isolated incident, that Dr Darby had positive references and had expressed regret and apologised it happened.

But it said he only showed a ‘partial level of insight’ to an incident that was so serious that it ‘breached multiple paragraphs of good medical practice.’

It said the three-month suspension would ‘sufficiently mark the seriousness of Dr Darby’s misconduct and send a signal to the profession that such behaviour is unacceptable.’

A review hearing will talk place shortly before the end of the three months so Dr Darby can ‘demonstrate how he has remediated his misconduct.’

His registration will be suspended 28 days after he is sent written notification from the MPTS about his suspension, unless he lodges an appeal.

If he does appeal, he will be able to practise until the outcome of any appeal is known.