Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service determination — substantive hearing
Suspended from practice — 9 months
The regulator’s term: suspension
What does “suspended from practice” mean?
A suspension is a fixed-term pause on the right to practise. The practitioner cannot work in the regulated profession during the suspension. At the end of the period the suspension may be extended, replaced with another sanction, or lifted on review.
Concerning Andrew Foster, doctor (General Medical Council 6145357).
Decision date: 20 June 2025 · Hearing started 2 June 2025 and ended 20 June 2025
This sanction period has elapsed.
In plain English
The MPTS tribunal considered a misconduct, conviction / caution case for Andrew Foster. It recorded the decision on impairment as impaired and imposed a 9-month suspension. The source PDF contains the tribunal's published reasons, with any private material redacted where required.
Charges
The MPTS PDF background states: 1. Dr Foster obtained his MB ChB in 2006 from the University of Manchester and has held full registration with the GMC since August 2007. He undertook his GP registrar training at the Coastal Medical Group Practice between 2010 and 2011. He obtained his MRCGP qualification in August 2011 and subsequently became a partner at the Practice. Coastal Medical Group Practice merged with Bay Medical Group where Dr Foster remained as a partner, until he was removed from the partnership in December 2022. Dr Foster commenced his current role as a salaried position at the Bentham Medical Practice in April 2023. 2. The matters before this Tribunal relate to allegations regarding XXX grounds of impairment: misconduct, caution XXX. Misconduct 3. Dr Foster was referred to the GMC by Dr A, one of his GP partners at Bay Medical Group, on 20 June 2022, who wrote “I'm writing to raise concerns regarding Dr Andrew Foster… I was asked to see him as a patient on 17/6/22 [XXX] He has prescribed this to himself and has prescribed it to [Patient C] to use himself…”. Dr Foster on the same day made a self-referral to the GMC. 4. Following a request by the GMC, Dr A provided information from the practice computer system (EMIS), which suggested Dr Foster prescribed XXX on 2 April 2019, for himself, when he failed to see another medical practitioner who could prescribe this Record of Determinations – Medical Practitioners Tribunal MPT: Dr FOSTER 3 medication to him; and it was not emergency treatment immediately necessary to avoid serious deterioration in health or serious harm. Patient C 5. Patient C was someone with whom Dr Foster had a close personal relationship. Dr A was also able to provide information which suggested that between 22 September 2015 and 28 January 2020, Dr Foster had written 27...
Findings
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal considered a misconduct, conviction / caution case for Andrew Foster. The detail page records impairment as impaired and the tribunal imposed a 9-month suspension.
Source
All facts on this page are drawn from the publicly published Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service determination linked below. MedicWatch does not editorialise the regulator’s findings.
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