A Nottingham doctor who pleaded guilty to drink driving offences in court after denying them to a health body has had his registration as a doctor suspended for three months. A tribunal determining Vivek Goel's fitness to practice and if he should be sanctioned has concluded at Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in Manchester.
Goel, of Derwent Close, Gamston at the time of the sentencing, was banned from driving for three years on January 3 2020 at Nottingham Magistrates' Court. He was found to be almost three times over the drink drive limit.
He admitted to driving with 99 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, 64 over the limit, and was also ordered to do 120 hours of community work. But he originally claimed to the General Medical Council (GMC, an online list of doctors registered to practice in the UK) he was chewing a betel nut and was not already drunk when buying spirits from a shop.
READ NEXT: Drink driving Nottingham doctor claimed chewing a betel nut made shopkeeper think he was sozzled
Goel is a consultant orthopaedic surgeon who often travelled to hospitals in Mansfield, Wigan and Doncaster. He works as a locum on six-month contracts, and the offence, along with another motoring conviction for failing to provide a specimen in 2018, were committed after the contracts had ended.
According to a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) document, Goel admitted to sending an email to the GMC on September 20 2019 stating that, following a report from the shopkeeper he was driving under the influence of alcohol, that: "I am unsure as to why anyone may have thought this… However it may have been because I was chewing a betel nut at the time (which can create a smell).
"I wish to assure the GMC that I did not drive whilst under the influence of alcohol on August 30 2019, and I do not know why the shop staff reported me to the police on that occasion."
MPTS determines if a doctor is fit to practice and if any sanctions should be given to that doctor. The tribunal in this case determined that his fitness to practice is impaired because of misconduct and his conviction, and then decided to suspend Goel from the register for three months.
A review hearing will take place to reassess the sanctions.
READ MORE:
Doctor struck off after being found to have had sex with colleague without consent
- Doctor alleged to have mistreated nine patients while in Nottingham
- Doctor's fitness to practice still impaired after failing to treat patients at King's Mill Hospital
- Doctor struck off for errors at QMC while already suspended in Holland
- Click here for all the latest courts news from Nottinghamshire Live
