Consultant took ‘powerful anaesthetics’ before operations to cope with NHS bureaucracy

A consultant who took “powerful anaesthetics” before sedating patients has had his medical licence suspended.

An anaesthetist has been banned from practising for 12 months after confessing to working under the influence of sedatives he was responsible for administering, blaming his struggle to cope with NHS bureaucracy

Michael Goodwin, 55, claimed he began abusing controlled drugs because working in the NHS had become “bureaucratic and frustrating”.

Dr Goodwin, a father of four, stole supplies of an unnamed general anaesthetic over a two-year period at Northampton General Hospital, where he had worked for 20 years.

He took the drugs before and after administering them to patients during operations between 2019 and 2021, and covered up his actions by entering false information on to the hospitals’ drug registers.

One colleague who noticed high levels of medication being inputted on the register joked that Dr Goodwin must be “putting the drug in his coffee”.

He was eventually confronted in May 2022 and was reported to the General Medical Council (GMC) after he confessed.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service found Dr Goodwin guilty of serious professional misconduct and suspended him for 12 months.

He had been due to take up a new post at Coventry Hospital, and had urged the panel to allow him to work under a number of restrictions that would have included regular drug tests.

The hearing heard how Dr Goodwin, who also worked privately at the Three Shires Hospital in Northampton, had developed a “drugs disorder” after “difficulties in his personal and professional life, which he said had been acutely stressful”.

“Dr Goodwin felt that his job had become more bureaucratic and frustrating, for example because his clinical autonomy had been eroded,” a report said.

“He described how getting through his day-to-day job had become a struggle and he said that he had been returning home ‘less and less satisfied and more worried’.”

It said Dr Goodwin had sought solace from the drugs, and feared being found out would end his career, but accepted not coming forward was a mistake.

‘Grave matter’

Priya Khanna, representing the GMC, said Dr Goodwin’s behaviour “strikes at the heart of the confidence [that] the public place in the medical profession”.

“Dr Goodwin’s job was to anaesthetise patients and yet he had been using the very drug on himself during procedures. He was self-anaesthetising during procedures and, on one occasion, whilst a patient was on the operating table,” she said.

‘‘This was a very grave matter and Dr Goodwin had not only put patients at risk but had also made his colleagues complicit in his dishonesty,” she added.

Tom Day, Dr Goodwin’s defence counsel, said the consultant had “reacted with striking honesty” when confronted.

“He admitted his behaviour without hesitation or minimisation. In fact he revealed information about his conduct that, in all likelihood, would never have been discovered. He has not sought to downplay what had happened – he has been completely honest and was relieved to have been discovered,” he said.

“No actual harm was caused to patients, there was no evidence of poor performance on Dr Goodwin’s part. His misconduct was an aberration in an otherwise unblemished career.”

‘Broken essential bond’

However, Simon Bond, who chaired the panel, said his behaviour was “deplorable for several reasons”.

“Consultant anaesthetists administer large doses of highly toxic drugs to patients day in, day out and patients would die if they were not in a controlled state. By self-administering during the course of his duties, Dr Goodwin had broken the essential bond of trust that should exist between patient and doctor,” he said.

Mr Bond said Dr Goodwin had “selfishly put his own interests before those of the vulnerable patients in his care [and] he also treated his colleagues with contempt and disrespect”.

He said it was “a matter of luck rather than judgment” that no one came to harm.