Tijjani Shehu
Introduction
Tijjani Shehu is a UK locum Consultant Physician who was suspended from the medical register for six months on 10 December 2025, after a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service found his emergency-department assessment of Patient A at King’s Mill Hospital on 28 December 2022 fell seriously below the standard of a reasonably competent consultant. Patient A — a 34-year-old with no significant medical history — died the following day. Shehu admitted every allegation; the tribunal found serious professional misconduct, limited insight and incomplete remediation, and made the suspension immediate .
Background Information
The GMC’s case concerned a single review on 28 December 2022 in the Emergency Department of King’s Mill Hospital. Shehu, the tribunal found, failed to recognise Patient A’s documented history of vomiting and fever; failed to take an adequate history covering cough, sputum, dysuria and diarrhoea; failed to consider any diagnosis other than deep vein thrombosis; failed to arrange blood cultures, urine cultures, skin swabs, a chest X-ray, a repeat blood gas or a liver ultrasound; failed to implement a treatment plan of intravenous antibiotics, intravenous fluids and oxygen assessment; and failed to adequately record the history, blood results, Doppler ultrasound and lactate. The failings caused a delay in the correct diagnosis and treatment. Patient A died on 29 December 2022 .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated (regulatory). The findings are a medical tribunal’s conclusions on the civil standard. The death was also the subject of a coroner’s investigation, which noted systemic as well as individual failings.
All allegations were admitted and proved. The tribunal found the failings fell seriously below the standard expected of a reasonably competent Consultant Physician and amounted to serious professional misconduct, placing the risk to public protection at the top of the medium range. The case it described was a chain of unconsidered alternatives: one diagnosis — deep vein thrombosis — pursued while the documented vomiting, fever and inflammatory signs that pointed elsewhere went unworked up, in a patient young enough that nothing in his history complicated the picture .
In mitigation the tribunal credited admissions at the outset, genuine remorse and an apology to Patient A’s family, no previous adverse history, many years of clinical service, some remedial learning, and conduct that was neither repeated nor reckless — and noted the coroner’s finding of systemic failings alongside Shehu’s own. Against that: his insight was limited and he could not articulate why he made the basic errors; his remediation was late, with no objective evidence of sepsis-targeted learning before October 2025 despite GMC concerns dating to May 2024; and his evidence contained inconsistencies at odds with his claim to have reflected deeply. Six months’ suspension followed, with a review and an immediate order .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The consequence is the six-month suspension, in force immediately, for a consultant who was ultimately responsible for the care of a 34-year-old who died the day after being assessed. The case is recorded in MedicWatch’s listing of doctors suspended in 2025 .
The determination does not find that Shehu’s failings caused the death — the coroner’s note of systemic failings is part of the same record, and the tribunal’s finding is confined to the delay in diagnosis and treatment. No public comment from Shehu beyond his admissions appears in the fetched record .
Current Status
Shehu is a suspended locum consultant under a six-month order imposed on 10 December 2025, effective immediately, with a review directed before expiry. The tribunal’s risk assessment sits at the top of the medium band, anchored to insight it found limited and remediation it found incomplete three years after the events .
The review will test whether the sepsis-focused learning the tribunal found absent before October 2025 has actually been undertaken. The admissions and remorse it credited are the mitigating floor; the unexplained basic errors are the finding any employer will read first .
Impact on Their Career/Life
The case is a study in how a single inadequate assessment compounds: history not taken, alternatives not considered, investigations not ordered, treatment not started, records not kept — each step individually arguable, together fatal to the patient’s chances and to the consultant’s registration. Shehu’s candour in admitting everything bought him the shorter suspension and the tribunal’s acknowledgment that he was not reckless. What it did not buy was a finding of insight: three years on, he still could not say why the errors happened, and the tribunal treated that gap — not the tragedy alone — as the reason the suspension needed to be immediate .