A DISGRACED doctor who allegedly took £100,000 from an out-of-hours GP service is to face a fitness to practise hearing.
Dr Ravi Sondhi was accused of abusing his position as chairman of Croydoc, failing to respond to hundreds of calls from patients, and racially abusing and bullying his staff.
He ran the service, which covered Croydon, Sutton and Merton, from his house in Norfolk, and took "substantial sums of money" from colleagues and patients at Portland Road Medical Centre, his practice in South Norwood, an NHS report found.
On Monday, more than a year after his actions were exposed by the investigation, the suspended Purley GP will appear before the General Medical Council (GMC).
He faces four key allegations, including failing to act with "financial probity" and behaving in a "dishonest and misleading manner with financial advances he procured from Croydon".
Dr Sondhi is also accused of failing to provide good care to patients, including "failing to ensure that an adequate level of doctor cover was available" and that, when on duty, he was unavailable to see patients or make home visits.
It is also alleged that he misled colleagues about these arrangements and failed to treat staff with respect, referring to them in instant messages in "inappropriate and racist terms" and that his behaviour towards them was "verbally aggressive, intimidating and abusive".
Dr Sondhi's actions came to light after Croydoc's chief executive Sue Ballon informed the auditor that he had made several unauthorised withdrawals totalling £100,000 between July 2008 and August 2009.
In December 2009, he and Ms Ballon were suspended, prompting NHS Croydon to launch an investigation, the results of which were published in January 2012.
It found Dr Sondhi consistently failed to answer the telephone when on call, with 144 unanswered calls logged in a single evening. He also took as long as three hours to respond to urgent calls, when the target was 20 minutes, and repeatedly cancelled shifts without warning.
The specialist's hearing, which is to be held in Manchester, is expected to last until July 26.
The panel will consider whether each allegation has been proved and whether Dr Sondhi's fitness to practise has been impaired. He could then be suspended or erased from the Medical Register.
After the NHS Croydon report, Dr Sondhi was thought to have fled the country. Last July, he resurfaced at his GP wife Salma Uddin's successful attempt to overturn being struck off by the GMC for bullying.
The Advertiser challenged him outside the Royal Courts of Justice but he refused to answer our questions.
