A Birmingham GP accused of sending her teenage daughter abroad for an illegal abortion has cost taxpayers a £600,000 NHS bill while she has been suspended.
Dr Saroj Adlakha, of Shilpa Medical Centre, in Kings Heath, has not been allowed to work for more than four-and-a-half years after she was suspended from the medical register by the General Medical Council.
But information disclosed to the Liberal Democrats under Freedom of Information Act requests shows that South Birmingham Primary Care Trust (PCT) has paid the doctor £600,000 while suspended – one of the highest amounts of those payments in the UK.
South Birmingham PCT has said Dr Adlakha’s payments included cover of two locum doctors for patients while the doctor was unable to work.
Dr Adlakha, of Somerset Road, Edgbaston, and her daughter Shilpa Abrol, were charged with conspiracy to commit child destruction abroad after the GP allegedly arranged for the then 18-year-old to have an illegal late abortion in Barcelona at 31 weeks into her pregnancy, although the legal limit is 22 in Spain.
Prosecutors dropped a criminal case against the GP in 2007 but the 62-year-old is suspended until August when a further GMC hearing takes place over the alleged abortion in 2003, abuse of her position, failure to be trustworthy and failure to give patients sufficient information and to understand risks.
Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat shadow health secretary, said suspended GPs cost an average of £60,000 each with 28 suspended in just one year nationwide.
