Six month ban for heroin scam doc

A pharmacy became concerned about diamorphine prescriptions

A Jersey GP who prescribed himself heroin has been banned from practising for six months.

Dr Michael Vincent, 50, was suspended from the doctors' register by a General Medical Council (GMC) panel.

He wrote 27 prescriptions of painkiller pethidine and 10 for diamorphine, the clinical equivalent of heroin, from 1 October 2006 to 30 November 2006.

But only five reached the patients that the prescriptions had been written for, the panel heard.

The doctor's scam was uncovered when a pharmacy in St Helier became concerned about the amount of pethidine and diamorphine that was being prescribed to patients by Vincent.

Vincent, who practised at the White Lodge Medical Centre, in Grosvenor Street, St Helier, admitted that he had given himself 54 doses of pethidine and 30 doses of diamorphine.

GMC panel chair Polly Clark told the hearing he could have been struck off if it was not for his poor health.

The panel acknowledged he was under considerable stress at the time, which included working as a sole practitioner with a large patient list.

Last year Vincent was convicted in Jersey of two counts of obtaining property by false pretences and failing to provide a specimen and was sentenced to 240 hours' community service.