A doctor who worked for a Surbiton health contractor has been handed a warning after a medical tribunal found she interrupted consultations with patients at a sexual assault centre to take calls for the NHS 111 service.

Dr Nazura Hyder Zaman Khan was employed by contractor Harmoni in 2012 as an independent self-employed forensic medical examiner at the Surrey Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) in Cobham. Harmoni, then based in Hollyfield Road, Surbiton, was later acquired by Care UK.

Later that year, she took on a further contract with Harmoni to work for the NHS 111 service.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) found in a tribunal last week that Dr Khan had worked and claimed invoices for concurrent shifts for both services. When working for the 111 service, she was also called to attend patients at SARC.

However, an allegation that while attending to patients at SARC, Dr Khan was unable to attend to patients at the 111 service, was not substantiated because the tribunal concluded that “there were clearly times when Dr Khan could have used a quiet room to attend to NHS 111 patients through telephone consultations”.

But it was found proved that Dr Khan had interrupted consultations with patients at SARC on June 2, 2013, June 30, 2013, July 14, 2013 and April 6, 2014, to undertake clinical consultation calls for the 111 service.

The panel said that in submitting separate invoices for concurrent shifts, Dr Khan was representing herself as wholly exclusive for each service and that her actions were misleading, though not dishonest.

It said Dr Khan’s shortcomings were “sufficiently serious to constitute misconduct”, but noted that she had shown “clear remorse” for her actions and asserted there would be “no risk” she would repeat them. Panellists also took into account the fact Dr Khan had repaid all the money she received for the overlapping shifts “without hesitation”.

There was no evidence patients had been harmed through her actions, they added.

Tribunal chairman Professor Stephen Miller said: “The tribunal sees this as a case of a good and efficient doctor in need of additional income, working under considerable domestic pressure, and anxious to assist her employers by agreeing to take on extended shifts in response to their frequent requests.

“In these circumstances, she made the unwise decision to undertake some on-call work for SARC in parallel with her NHS 111 role.

“It is clear that Dr Khan did not attempt to conceal her work pattern from Care UK, and that they did not give her any indication that her approach was unacceptable or detect any deviation from her usual high standards of work.”

Prof Miller concluded that Dr Khan’s fitness to practice was not impaired, but handed her a warning, to appear on the doctors’ registry for five years.

He said the MPTS had to “uphold proper standards of conduct and maintain public confidence in the medical profession”.