Demoted in Blackpool in October 2022, applied for a consultant post in King's Lynn a month later: how Dr Surrayya Najeeb's CV ended in erasure from the UK register

The United Kingdom's medical register is kept by the General Medical Council, and the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service can remove a doctor for dishonesty even when no patient has been proven harmed. A consultant-level case decided in September 2026 is a reminder that the CV an NHS trust receives is only as good as the checks it makes with the previous employer.

According to Lynn News on 23 September 2026, Dr Surrayya Najeeb qualified in 1985 from a medical university in Pakistan and later worked as a locum consultant at Blackpool Teaching Hospital. In October 2022 her superiors there raised concerns about her ability to do the job and she was demoted from consultant to registrar. The following month she applied to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn for a post as a respiratory consultant (Doctors.net.uk describes it as a locum consultant post) and did not disclose the demotion. The tribunal said she "included inaccurate information about her role and qualifications on application forms and her CV", and she left out the fact that she had not completed an advanced cardiovascular life support course. Doctors.net.uk reported on 14 September 2026 that she had failed that course two days before her QEH interview, and that when the trust asked her in December 2023 whether she knew of any concerns about her ability to work as a consultant, she denied any change in her job role at Blackpool.

Lynn News reported that the QEH's medical director and responsible officer raised concerns with the GMC on 12 December 2023. A GMC performance assessment in August 2024 found some areas of her work acceptable but others "unacceptable", including assessing patients and clinical management: she did not consistently complete a systematic assessment, her examination skills were "inadequate", she wanted to give chest compressions to a conscious, talking patient, and she did not know how to prescribe accurately for severe asthma. She denied being moved to registrar, attending the related meetings at Blackpool or receiving any communication about a demotion, and kept denying wrongdoing when interviewed by investigators. The tribunal found misconduct and deficient professional performance proven, said she "had misrepresented herself and misled her employers", that her actions fell "seriously below" what was expected of someone with her seniority, and that there was no evidence of insight, remorse or remediation. She did not attend her misconduct hearing. Her name was removed from the register immediately. Rebecca Martin, the QEH's medical director, said the doctor left the trust's employment in early 2024 and that once concerns were identified the trust restricted her clinical practice, investigated and referred the matter to the GMC.

The mechanism was a gap between two employers. A demotion in one trust in October did not travel to a job application in another trust in November, because the application relied on the candidate's own account. Performance information about doctors in the NHS is held by each trust's responsible officer, and it only moves if someone asks.

For students and families the lesson has two sides. A doctor's seniority is a claim that can be checked against the GMC register, which shows registration status and specialist register entries. And for anyone building a career abroad, a demotion or a failed course concealed on a form is treated by the regulator as dishonesty, and dishonesty, not the original weakness, is what ends a registration.