A cosmetic surgeon has been banned from the medical profession for a year for teaching nurses how to inject botox illegally without the correct prescription.
Dr Mark Harrison, who owns Amberley Court near Stroud, was found to be 'impaired' by a fitness to practise panel of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.
The panel heard evidence from an underover BBC London investigation which, as Stroud Life and the Gloucester Citizen reported in 2012, showed him explaining how prescriptions for the toxic drug could be obtained in the names of friends and family and the stock of drugs could be used on walk-in patients.
The hearing from January 12 to 15 was told the boss of Harley Aesthetics authorised nurses to administer the drug after he charged £30 for a telephone consultation. Prescribing it without a face-to-face consultation is only allowed in exceptional circumstances.
"Dr Harrison has demonstrated a cavalier attitude to some of the concerns raised," the panel concluded. "There is no evidence of remediation since the concerns were raised and he has continued to maintain that his practice was safe. Additionally, the panel has found that Dr Harrison was dishonest before the Interim Orders Panel. This is demonstrative of a lack of respect and a dismissive attitude towards his regulatory body."
A journalist posing as a trainee nurse secretly filmed him telling nurses of a loophole in the law - it has now been closed by the General Medical Council.
He told nurses to use Botox on a patient even if it was prescribed to another.
He was secretly filmed, telling nurses: "Well, you know in reality, we don't use one vial for one person.
"You're probably using it on that patient and somebody else or maybe you are not. You know, it's one of those."
Dr Harrison was not at the panel hearing and was not represented.
He could not be reached for comment.
He told an interim hearing panel in 2012: "I can understand that on a busy ward with lots of different vials and lots of different patients, to use vials between patients would be dangerous. It would be unacceptable. However, in the context of Botox where you have a single practitioner administering a single medication to one patient at a time, I would contend that that is not dangerous, but I have not been accused of doing it. So, I do not encourage nurses to do that."
However the panel stated: "The findings against Dr Harrison are wide-ranging, some are repeated and involve the potential to place patients at risk of harm. His conduct fell far short of the standards to be expected, could properly be described as deplorable, and therefore amounts to misconduct."
