“Highly experienced” Richard Lohman was based at the Luther Street Surgery in Oxford from 2001 until he was dismissed in October 2019.
The surgery specialises in providing medical care to homeless people and substance misusers.
READ MORE: Toyota driver who killed cyclist was convicted sex offender
In June 2018, Mr Lohman received a final written warning following an incident the previous year when a “highly intoxicated” patient was brought into the surgery.
In a witness statement, he admitted he had tried to give the man his tablets.
READ MORE: Licence fee increase for landlords renting houses in Oxford
He said: “I walk over to the patient calling his name loudly to him, I tell the patient in German he needs to wake up and with no response further assess the depth of his slumber by nudging his foot with mine.”
He said getting no response, he knelt next to the man and touched his elbow and shook his shoulder “while repeating the message to him loudly in German”.
A doctor told the investigation she saw the patient lying on the reception floor with Mr Lohman leaning over him and “slapping the patient’s arm. It was so loud I could hear it from my room.”
Oxford Mail readers can sign up to our website for £3 for three months or get 40 per cent off an annual subscription in this flash sale offer.
This will give you an ad-light experience with unlimited access to our online content. Full details here 👇https://t.co/epEa8HgD3p pic.twitter.com/qpsKfOrSJH
— Oxford Mail (@TheOxfordMail) August 30, 2023
The panel concluded Mr Lohman touched a patient in an inappropriately forceful manner and his attempt to give medication to an intoxicated patient placed the man at potential risk and was outside Mr Lohman’s professional capacity.
Following the incident, Mr Lohman was told by a senior manager to take the afternoon off and not see any other patients.
But he disobeyed and met with a service user later that afternoon which was “inappropriate” professional conduct, the panel concluded.
In a meeting in 2019 Mr Lohman then raised a concern with a senior manager about the policy for not issuing duplicate scripts for controlled drugs, such as methadone, without a police report.
He highlighted an incident in October 2017 when a patient who said they had either lost or had their script stolen and was told to go to the police station, get a police report and come back.
The police did not provide the report and the practice told the patient to come back the following day.
The patient was reported dead over the weekend from a suspected possible overdose.
During the meeting Mr Lohman told the manager that he had recently gone to a police station and put himself forward as being a drug user who had lost their prescription and needed a replacement to test the system.
He was told by the police officer that they no longer provide these reports.
READ MORE: Man charged with theft offences and careless driving
The senior manager became “very concerned because it appeared the claimant had lied to the police”.
He felt this “had the potential to damage the practice’s relationship with the police and the reputation of the trust more generally”.
Summarising their meeting, he wrote to Mr Lohman: “I challenged your actions as to why you lied to the police officer.
“You responded by saying to me ‘do you think they would have told me the truth?’
“I told you that I have no reason to doubt that they would not tell us the truth and that if we have any concerns regarding any process we would ask directly and if needed we would follow official channels available to us.”
Following a disciplinary hearing on September 27 2019, Mr Lohman was dismissed.
He appealed and although the panel downgraded the conduct from gross misconduct to ordinary misconduct, the appeal was rejected.
In September 2022 Employment Judge Maxwell rejected Mr Lohman’s claim for unfair dismissal and a claim that Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust had failed to make reasonable adjustments.
On August 14, he was ordered to pay the Trust’s £16,000 legal costs.