Clare Dyer The BMJ

A coroner is to write to the UK General Medical Council asking it to reform its procedures after a consultant anaesthetist killed himself within hours of receiving an email telling him he was being investigated.

Sridharan Suresh, 50, a consultant at North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, drowned himself in the River Tees on 2 May 2018. That day he had received an emailed letter from the GMC telling him that his NHS and private employers would all be notified of allegations that he had inappropriately touched a teenage girl and would soon be called before an interim orders tribunal.

In April 2018 Suresh gave midazolam to a 15 year old girl to sedate her for a dental procedure. Among the occasional side effects of midazolam are confusion, hallucinations, and unusual thoughts or behaviour.

The girl accused him of touching her …