A GP convicted of a string of alcohol-related offences, including one in which he bit a police officer, has avoided suspension, MailOnline can reveal.
Dr Jane Hornsey, aged in her 60s, was caught drink-driving in 2018. She escaped being sent to jail but was banned from driving for three years and fined £120 .
Regulators wanted to suspend her considering the doctor’s history of crimes and the severity of the latest incident.
But it avoided being dismissed after arguing that it had already been punished by the courts and “did not deserve” another sanction.
Instead, Dr Hornsey, previously dubbed “Britain’s worst GP”, and who local press reported previously worked in the Yorkshire town of Keighley, was given a number of conditions to comply with.
Dr Jane Hornsey was caught drink-driving in 2018. She escaped jail but was banned from driving for three years and fined £120.
In a review of those conditions last week, Dr Hornsey argued it could make a “positive contribution” to Britain’s overstretched GP services.
“She also feels she has a useful role to play,” according to documents submitted to the Medical Tribunal Service (MPTS).
“He said he has discussed with his GP colleagues the tensions and difficulties GPs currently face.”
The Medical Tribunal Service (MPTS) has given him a new set of conditions which he must comply with over the next 12 months.
This includes putting Dr Hornsey, a mother-of-four who qualified in 1982, on a GP-approved return plan to ensure her clinical skills are up to date.
Other conditions include a limit on the number of hours she can work and that she must be supervised at work at all times.
Dr Hornsey, previously dubbed “Britain’s worst GP”, and reported by local press to have previously worked at North Street Surgery in Keighley.
But the MPTS added that the decision between the conditions and a full suspension was “finely balanced”. Dr Hornsey’s conditions will be reviewed within a year.
He has not worked as a GP since 2016 and had limitations placed on how he could work since 2014 following a drunken and disorderly conduct conviction.
A ‘drunk’ Dr Hornsey walked into an emergency department the previous year and launched abusive ‘rants’ at staff and police. He also scared the public by “entering other patients’ cubicles and declaring himself a doctor.”
Dr Hornsey herself called her behavior “shameful” and said it had made her “decided not to drink again”.
At the time, the MPTS issued him a three-year practicing conditions order, noting any further measures would be “disproportionate”.
Dr. Hornsey’s first drinking-related offense occurred in 2009 in an incident involving a violent altercation with a police officer.
On October 18 of that year, she crashed her car and was later seen “clearly intoxicated and staggering.”
After a call from a passing motorist, police responded to the scene, but when they asked Dr. Hornsey to take a breathalyzer test, she refused. When an officer tried to restrain her, she bit his forearm.
Bradford Crown Court heard in 2010 how the police officer was forced to punch her twice on the head and use capsicum spray to finally restrain her.
It was also noted that the officer even needed hospital care for his injuries.
Dr Hornsey was found guilty of assault and drink-driving in relation to the incident.
His most recent conviction related to an incident that occurred on July 20, 2018.
He arrived at a Tesco in Skipton, North Yorkshire and bought a bottle of wine. However, Dr. Hornsey reeked so much of alcohol that her staff, upon noticing that she had arrived by car, made the decision to call the police.
When questioned by officers, she admitted to having consumed two or three glasses of wine after an argument with her mother before driving to the store. A blood sample, taken at that time, later revealed that she was almost twice over the legal limit.
She was later charged and convicted of driving under the influence.
Subsequent MPTS statutory proceedings were held in 2020 in which the court heard the doctor “could easily have killed someone while driving”.
The court at the time said Dr Hornsey “did not appear to appreciate the seriousness of her actions” and appeared “irritated and hostile” during questioning, as well as expressing “no apology or remorse”.
In the last round with the MPTS, Dr Hornsey acknowledged that she had not sought employment since the 2020 tribunal due to Covid and personal reasons heard behind closed doors.
But she said she still wanted to work as a GP, saying “being a doctor is part of her identity”.
Data on the GP workforce, plotted in this graph up to May 2023, shows that there are 27,200 fully qualified GPs in England. This is down from 27,627 the previous year. The number of GPs peaked at 29,537 in March 2016
The court noted that Dr Hornsey has yet to apologize for the events leading up to her conviction in 2018 and instead “appears to place responsibility for her actions on NHS England”.
They also noted that, except for a 10-month period of part-time work in 2016, she had not worked as a doctor since 2009, and her clinical skills may have deteriorated in that time, something they said she did not seem to appreciate.
NHS data shows there were 27,302 fully qualified GPs working in England in September this year, the latest figures available.
This is 2,000 less than the figure recorded in the same month of 2018.
GPs themselves say they feel overwhelmed by patient demand.
Some family doctors are now responsible for up to 2,600 patients each in some areas, up from an average of 1,900 in 2016.
According to recommendations implemented by the BMA and the European General Practitioners Union, GPs today should make no more than 25 appointments a day to ensure safe care.
But some doctors reportedly have to see almost 60 patients a day.
Ministers have also quietly scrapped a promise to recruit 6,000 more GPs, which was a major part of Boris Johnson’s election-winning manifesto.
Patient satisfaction with GP services, as a result of the appointment crisis, has also plummeted to its lowest level on record.
