A FORMER Furness General Hospital consultant who faces being banned from working as a doctor will have to wait another eight months to learn his fate.

On May 8 a hearing began at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in Manchester to decide if consultant urologist Kavinder Madhra's fitness to practice is impaired.

Mr Madhra began working for the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust in 2001.

In 2002 he was given a warning by the General Medical Council because of clinical errors but was allowed to continue working.

He continued to be paid while he spent six years retraining and returned to Furness General Hospital in 2008.

Concerns continued to emerge with one of the most serious almost resulting in a patient having the wrong kidney removed.

In July 2014 five complaints led to him being suspended but he was allowed to continue working until he resigned in September 2018 after the GMC imposed conditions on his practice.

The MPTS hearing, instigated by the GMC's concerns, had been scheduled to last two weeks.

However the length of the hearing has since been revised and because of the availability of those involved it has now been adjourned until January 2020.

A spokesman for the MPTS said: "This hearing has adjourned part-heard without any decisions being announced. It will continue in January.

"That will be the next date that everyone involved is available to continue - the medical and lay people on the tribunal, plus the legal representatives involved in the case.

"We always want to list a part-heard case as soon as possible, as it is in everyone’s interests that cases are concluded."