Liverpool and Blackpool doctor with drugs posted in birthday card waits to learn fate after watchdog tribunal

After moving to Malta to study medicine, Sean Welsh, 32, agreed for a friend of his cousin to send out cannabis and ketamine to his home on the island through the post.

After a second delivery was intercepted by police, Dr Welsh received a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years and a €500 fine. However, on returning to the UK to take part in a training course, he failed to declare his conviction.

After three days of evidence, a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing has concluded the doctor’s conduct amounted to “serious misconduct.” Panel members are now deliberating on the nature of the sanction to hand down to the south Liverpool-based practitioner, who worked at Blackpool Hospital on his return to the UK.

Dr Welsh told the three-person panel having been accepted on a course to study Medicine at the University of Malta, he moved there in 2015. During a return home, he met a friend of his cousin at a December 2018 New Year’s Eve party.

He was persuaded by the friend, against his better judgment and with some reluctance, to receive some drugs which were to be sent by post to his Maltese address. The friend explained that he was planning to go to a musical festival and would be using them there in 2019.

It was not a festival at which Dr Welsh intended to be present nor did he plan to use the drugs himself. The first package arrived without incident and Dr Welsh placed it on his kitchen counter.

The friend then asked if he could send another and Dr Welsh agreed. In April 2018, Maltese police officers knocked on Dr Welsh’s door and he allowed them in.

It became clear that the second package had been intercepted and the officers seized the first package from the counter. Dr Welsh was arrested and taken to the police station where he was questioned and told that if he admitted possession he would not be charged with supply.

In 2019, Dr Welsh submitted a form for a place on the UK Foundation Programme in which he disclosed that he had fitness to practise issues but failed to follow that up with disclosure of the conviction. A year later, on a GMC application form, the doctor answered that he had not been convicted of an offence in a court of law in the UK or any other country.

The panel accepted that while serious, Dr Welsh’s dishonesty did not constitute a pattern of repeated deception over a prolonged period, rather it involved two discrete but associated incidents occurring closely in time.

The tribunal also considered Dr Welsh’s explanation for his dishonesty. He was a medical student during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he expressed fear that disclosure of his conviction would prevent him from joining the profession.

It was accepted that Dr Welsh was 24 at the time of the offences and while deliberate, his actions were not motivated by malice but by anxiety about the consequences. Panel members accepted the doctor had admitted his dishonesty, taken responsibility, and sought to remediate his conduct.

However, it was concluded that Dr Welsh’s conduct fell seriously below the standards expected of a registered medical practitioner and amounted to serious misconduct.

The Tribunal accepted that the offences occurred over seven years ago and that Dr Welsh was relatively young at the time. It was acknowledged however the extensive steps he has since taken to reflect on and understand the seriousness of his past conduct, as well as the absence of any subsequent concerns about his behaviour or clinical competence.

Panel members are now considering a potential sanction they may hand down to Dr Welsh as a result.