Pharmacist suspended after touching colleague's bottom in Madame Tussauds
A pharmacist has been suspended for a raft of “inappropriate and sexual” behaviour with female colleagues, including some caught on camera at a Madame Tussauds Christmas party.
A pharmacist has been suspended for making “numerous sexual comments to female colleagues over a period of 28 months, some of which had been for his own sexual gratification”, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has found.
At a remote hearing ending on June 13, the GPhC said that Douglas Rowland Hemingway, registration number 2218719, trained at the Blackpool Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust between 2017 and 2018 before being employed full time and eventually promoted to a “haematology, oncology and palliative care clinical pharmacist” by 2021.
The next year “the council received a concern from the chief pharmacist at the hospital, reporting there had been whistle blowing from a number of female staff members,” the committee said.
The committee heard that after “an initial investigation” in 2019 “which had resulted in no formal action”, new allegations raised in 2021 had led to a 12-month investigation culminating in his termination. “The registrant denied the allegations,” it said.
The GPhC admitted that that Hemingway had “formally apologised to all of the complainants for his behaviour” and that “there had been no complaints about [his] professional work as a pharmacist”.
But said that he had “abused his position of trust”, adding that other staff had no issues with him “while he was a trainee pharmacist but…on qualification as a pharmacist, his behaviour changed”.
“The committee had found that the inappropriate and sexual comments made to female colleagues were whispered, most likely to avoid others hearing them”, it said that, adding that his behaviour had “a significant impact on fo1ur female colleagues who…had been very distressed”.
“I bet you liked it”
The committee heard that during a work Christmas party at Madame Tussauds in 2018 a pharmacy technician at the hospital “alleged that the registrant had touched her bottom” while “a group photograph was being taken”.
The committee found that in another photo taken that night of just the Hemingway the pharmacy technician “it was plausible [Hemingway’s] hand could have been positioned on [her] bottom”.
It heard that a week later while at work, Hemingway had asked the pharmacy technician if he had touched her “bum” and “allegedly apologised”.
“But I bet you liked it,” the pharmacy technician claimed he went on to say.
She said that in 2019, while at another colleague’s leaving party at the Cube nightclub, Hemingway had again “grabbed [her] bottom”.
And later that year, during a hospital continuous professional development (CPD) session “the registrant showed her a piece of paper on which he had written a question…asking her if she used sex toys” she said.
The committee also heard that in 2021 Hemingway “asked her about her back pain and how it affected her sex life”.
She told the GPhC that she did not “immediately” reported the incidents because “it’s one of those things – male versus female, technician versus pharmacist, no proof”.
“I wanted to progress and didn’t want to rock the boat with senior staff,” she added.
“Felt she would get into trouble”
The committee heard that in 2019, a healthcare assistant working at the hospital reported that Hemingway he had asked her questions about her “love life” and said he “liked the tattoo on her thigh” – comments which the committee did not consider “to be inappropriate or sexual in nature”.
But the healthcare assistant alleged that when she walked away “the registrant followed her” and “asked her to go to the doctors’ office with him, which she did”.
She told the GPhC that Hemingway then commented that she “must have been with people who were shit in bed”, “requested to see the tattoo on her leg” and gave her a hug even after she had said she did not want one.
When she walked out of the office, she claimed that Hemingway said “you just need a good shag” before he whispering in her ear “no, you need someone to make you come”.
“The explicit nature of the comments...were more likely than not to have given the registrant sexual gratification,” the committee found.
Feeling “very uncomfortable”, she then walked towards a hospital bed, “pulled the curtain around [it] and started crying,” the committee heard.
An assistant practice nurse, who the healthcare assistant had spoken to, told the GPhC that “she was very distressed about what had happened to her and felt she would get into trouble”.
“That is disgusting”
FtP documents revealed that the same assistant practice nurse, “who had worked at the hospital for 22 years”, reported that in 2019 Hemingway had “looked at her in a suggestive manner” and told her she looked “nice today”.
“It was totally out of context and made me felt uncomfortable and embarrassed…the look on his face and in his eye was not something I had seen from him before,” she told the GPhC.
A fourth female colleague told the committee that in 2019 he had made comments to her along the lines of “you are quite attractive for an older lady” when there was “nobody else around”.
As she was heading home one day, she claimed that Hemingway had “stood in the exit doorway, pulled down his COVID 19 mask and said to her ‘I bet you’re dirty in bed’.”
She responded “that is disgusting” and left, documents said.
No evidence of a “secret agreement”
Towards the end of his evidence, Hemingway “alleged there had been collusion between some of the witnesses” and submitted that “staff members had shared their allegations with each other”.
But he was “unable to give an explanation as to what motive the witnesses may have for colluding, simply stating some of the witnesses had confirmed they did not like him [and] found him boring and annoying,” the committee heard.
“There had been comments about him being ‘creepy’ [and] he considered they may have wanted to get him into trouble,” it said.
The GPhC found that “in allegations of this nature…complainants may be reluctant to come forward and gain confidence from either realising someone else had also had a similar experience”.
It concluded that “there was no evidence that there had been a secret agreement between any of the witnesses” and that “no motive or vendetta by the witnesses had been identified”.
“There was no plausible explanation for them to invent such allegations together,” it said.
The committee said that “there had been some remediation” and that Hemingway had “undertaken relevant courses and reading to understand and address his misconduct”.
“Good character references had been provided from other work colleagues at the hospital who had had no issues with [him],” it added.
But it said that he had “shown insufficient insight into his misconduct and into the committee’s determination on facts found proved”.
And that “the misconduct had taken place both in the workplace and outside the workplace at two social events”, it added.
The committee decided to impose “the maximum period of suspension of 12 months”, saying that “removal from the register would be a disproportionate sanction in this case as there had been no concerns about the [Hemingway’s] practise as a pharmacist”.
It noted that this “is not a short period of suspension” and Hemingway had “already been subject to an interim order of suspension for 18 months”.
Read the determination in full here.
If you’ve been affected by sexual harassment in the work place, reach out to NAWP , Pharmacist Support or PASS in Northern Ireland for help. Find free materials to raise awareness of a zero tolerance of abuse policies in pharmacies here.
