Doctor Salah-ud-Din Taj hid 14 Australian convictions – including stalking – to secure job in North Cumbria NHS

An NHS consultant doctor has been struck off after it emerged he failed to disclose 14 convictions from Australia, including stalking and threatening to kill his victim.

Dr Salah-ud-Din Taj had claimed that the offences were not “serious” enough to mention when he applied to work in the UK.

Dr Taj, who qualified from the University of the Punjab in Pakistan in 1996, worked as a Medical Registrar in Australia between 2007 and 2017.

During this period, he was convicted of 14 offences over four months, including stalking and threatening to kill, at the Magistrates Court of Victoria in Melbourne.

He received a one-year community correction order, which included 150 hours of unpaid work and supervision.

When applying for registration to work as a doctor in the UK, Dr Taj “dishonestly” ticked the ‘no’ box regarding previous convictions on his forms.

In 2019, he lied again to North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust to secure himself a job.

He later claimed that he thought the stalking conviction “was not serious” and was therefore “filterable” and did not need to be declared.

He continued that he had been “confused” by the question.

Dr Taj said that he did not declare the conviction because it “had not involved any physical element, did not touch upon his clinical practice and did not result in a custodial sentence”.

However, in the North Cumbria application, the doctor had written a note on the form to let the hospital know about a “minor incident” between himself and his victim in Australia.

Even in this note Dr Taj gave inaccurate information as he “consistently sought to minimise” the offences he had committed.

Since 2022, Dr Taj practised as a locum consultant in Acute Medicine at Lincoln County Hospital.

His prior convictions were discovered by the General Medical Council (GMC) and an investigation was launched into the doctor.

In the course of the investigation, it was also discovered that Dr Taj had been dishonest about practicing in Australia exclusively between 2007 and 2017, as he took breaks and also went to Pakistan.

A panel from the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service found that Dr Taj could not remain on the register after lying about his convictions.

It concluded: “Dr Taj had admitted to circling ‘No’ on the GMC application form and that he knew this to be untrue because he was aware of having been convicted and sentenced.

“Dr Taj told the Tribunal he did not see this as dishonest, as he thought the conviction was filterable.

“The Tribunal considered that even a lay person, with little understanding of the law, would understand that a conviction for 14 offences, spanning a period of four months was serious and should be declared to a regulator.

“Dr Taj was an experienced professional who had been through registration in Australia, where disclosure of his conviction had initially not been made. As a result, Dr Taj should have been fully aware of the importance of providing full disclosure of his conviction.”

The panel found that anyone should have realised 14 offences would have counted as “serious”.

It continued: “The Tribunal was satisfied that Dr Taj’s supplying of inaccurate information with regard to his employment history was not simply a mistake but intentionally misleading.

“The Tribunal concluded that given the seriousness of its findings and in light of the Guidance, the sanction of erasure was appropriate and proportionate in this case.

“The Tribunal was satisfied that any lesser sanction would fail to maintain public confidence in the profession, and promote and maintain proper professional standards and conduct for the members of the profession.

“Accordingly, the Tribunal determined that Dr Taj’s name be erased from the Medical Register.”