Adam Osborne struck off for affair with vulnerable patient Published duration 11 February 2016

image copyright Fiona Hanson/PA image caption Adam Osborne admitted threatening his patient after she reported him to the General Medical Council

Psychiatrist Adam Osborne has been struck off the medical register after having a two-year affair with a vulnerable patient.

It follows a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service ruling that his fitness to practise had been impaired.

The 39-year-old, who is the brother of Chancellor George Osborne, had admitted an inappropriate relationship with a patient.

The tribunal ruled his behaviour was "profoundly unacceptable".

Dr Osborne, who was married at the time, had been treating the woman - Patient A - for depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue at his private clinic in London between 2011 and 2014.

She also had problems with substance abuse and self-harm.

Suicide attempt

He ended the affair by email in February last year but after Patient A reported him to the General Medical Council (GMC) he sent her a "number of inappropriate emails", the tone of which grew more threatening, the tribunal was told.

The four-day hearing in Manchester was told the mother of two took an overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol in an attempt to end her life two days after he broke off the relationship.

Dr Nigel Callaghan, the tribunal chairman, said Dr Osborne's behaviour "undermines the public's confidence in the medical profession".

After Patient A and another psychiatrist, Dr Neil Boast, reported him to the GMC, he emailed his former lover asking her to withdraw the complaint.

Representing the GMC, Bernadette Baxter said the emails were "highly manipulative" in preying on the woman's vulnerabilities.

Previously suspended

In a letter read out at the tribunal, which Dr Osborne did not attend, he apologised over the relationship and sending "inappropriate emails in a moment of panic".

In 2010, he was suspended from practising medicine for six months after writing fraudulent prescriptions for a girlfriend, a family member and an escort, while a trainee at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester.

The GMC found he had "behaved dishonestly" after attempting to obtain anti-psychotic medication for a cocaine addict he had been seeing while his partner was away.

At the latest hearing, Dr Callaghan said the 2010 case was an aggravating factor in the ruling to remove him from the register.