A DOCTOR has been suspended for failings in the care of two patients at Warrington Hospital.

Dr Joseph Mclagen Nankhonya had previously been sanctioned by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in 2016 for his actions while working as a locum consultant physician in stroke medicine at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation during a two-month period in 2013.

But on Thursday, May 24, a review hearing found that Dr Nankhonya had breached conditions imposed upon him and suspended him from practising for a year.

The doctor had originally been sanctioned for failing to arrange 'urgent brain imaging' for one patient and also neglected to administer aspirin to them and make a record in their medical notes.

Dr Nankhonya also conducted an 'inadequate assessment' of another patient, and maintained a particular medical diagnosis despite ultrasound scans having contradicted this.

Last week, the MPTS' review panel heard that there was no evidence that the 'situation had deteriorated' in the past two years as Dr Nankonya had breached conditions imposed on him as he had failed to inform his latest employers - Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust - of them.

Suspending him from practising for 12 months, panel chairman James Newton-Price said: "The tribunal considered that there was a lack of openness on Dr Nankhonya's part and that he had breached one of his conditions in failing to inform the trust of their existence.

"The tribunal is of the view that Dr Nankhonya has very limited insight.

"There is no evidence to suggest that Dr Nankhonya accepts his failures or recognises the importance of the regulatory process and the reason for it.

"He continues to challenge the findings of the 2016 tribunal and he has resiled from the acceptance of his clinical failings that was made by his counsel in his presence at that hearing.

"The tribunal has concluded that there is nothing before it that would displace the finding of the 2016 tribunal that Dr Nonkhonya poses a risk of harm to patients."

Dr Nankhonya has previously been suspended from practising five times by the MPTS - including for drinking while on his dinner break.

He turned up for duty at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport smelling of alcohol on four separate occasions in 2006.

When quizzed by colleagues on one such occasion, he admitted having several beers during his lunch hour.

Dr Nankhonya was subsequently suspended from practising for a year on that occasion.

Mr Newton Price added: "The tribunal noted that Dr Nankhonya has not accepted the gravity of the findings made against him.

"It also considered that his remediation has been inadequate, and that he has demonstrated very little insight into his failings as outlined in the tribunal's determination on impairment.

"The tribunal was satisfied that an order of suspension would send out a signal to Dr Nankhonya, the profession and public about what is regarded as behaviour unbefitting a registered doctor."