Dolin Bhagawati
Introduction
Dr Dolin Bhagawati is a senior doctor who worked in London hospitals as a senior clinical fellow in neurosurgery for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust from October 2018 to January 2025, and who has been struck off the medical register after a medical practitioners tribunal found he prescribed medication for himself contrary to guidance, improperly requested blood tests, and then concealed his actions by attaching the orders to another clinician’s name and account. A three-person panel chaired by Aaminah Khan, sitting from October 26 to 29, 2026, concluded that Bhagawati should be removed from the medical register with immediate effect, pending an appeal period. He did not attend the hearing; the General Medical Council reported that he has since moved abroad, and all of the allegations against him were found proven.
Background Information
Bhagawati was alleged to have prescribed himself medication, contrary to guidance, on four occasions between June 2022 and November 2024, and to have ordered blood tests on May 24, 2024 and December 20 the same year. To cover his tracks, he was found to have used a temporary access card to read a record of a consultation he had undergone in 2019, then attached his requests for medications and blood tests to that session in the name of another clinician, referred to in the tribunal report as Dr B. The use of the temporary card, rather than his own credentials, meant the hospital system did not identify him as the person submitting the requests. Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which operates Charing Cross, St Mary’s and other sites across west London, undertook a preliminary investigation after concerns were raised towards the end of his contract, then referred the matter to the GMC.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Struck off by the medical tribunal. Bhagawati was erased from the medical register in October 2026 after the tribunal found he self-prescribed and used a colleague’s name to conceal it, then acted dishonestly when questioned.
When questioned about the orders in February 2025, Bhagawati initially said he had not made them, claiming his GP had done so, then claiming a colleague had requested them, before finally acknowledging he had ordered the tests and medication himself. In an email to senior figures at the trust dated March 3, 2025, he wrote: “I would like to change my previous statements and accept responsibility for ordering the tests and the scripts… I appreciate the seriousness of this statement,” adding that if the investigation was to be referred to the GMC he was “happy to self refer.” The tribunal found he had been looking to “conceal his own actions by using another colleague’s name and account to order them,” and that he had therefore both self-prescribed and acted dishonestly. The panel, while acknowledging his good character, removed his name from the register immediately to protect the public, concluding: “The findings of misconduct were serious and at a high level of risk, with no evidence of insight or remediation, and concerns about a high risk of repetition.”
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case’s publication drew attention to the scale of the deception within an NHS trust, with the tribunal’s findings recording that Bhagawati’s account had shifted over time, from GP to colleague to himself, until the email in which he accepted responsibility. Imperial College Healthcare told reporters it was unable to confirm where Bhagawati had been based, noting that its neurosurgery service operates out of Charing Cross and St Mary’s hospitals, and the trust’s preliminary investigation was recorded as the origin of the GMC case. The tribunal chair’s panel found his misconduct sat at a high level of risk of repetition, a finding that drove the decision to impose the most severe sanction available rather than a suspension.
Current Status
Bhagawati has been erased from the medical register with immediate effect, subject to the standard appeal period, and the tribunal record states he did not engage with the hearing in person, being represented by no attendance from him at all. He is reported to have moved abroad, meaning the erasure in the UK removes his ability to practise medicine registered with the GMC while the findings of dishonesty remain on the public record. No criminal proceedings arising from the conduct were reported in the coverage of the tribunal’s decision, and the sanction is the professional one: erasure for misconduct that the panel found serious, high-risk and unremediated.
Impact on Their Career/Life
A senior clinical fellow career spanning nearly seven years at one of the NHS’s largest trusts ended with erasure, the terminal sanction of medical regulation, imposed for conduct the tribunal described as an attempt to conceal self-prescribing behind a colleague’s identity. The findings of dishonesty, both in the concealment and in the shifting accounts during the investigation, mark Bhagawati’s record with the regulator’s highest level of concern about insight and repetition, which the panel cited as the reason erasure rather than suspension was the only proportionate outcome. For the trust, the case closed a referral that began with concerns raised as his contract ended in January 2025, and for patients the outcome recorded that the orders placed under another doctor’s name were his own.