A PODIATRIST who used cocaine, was rude to patients and failed to keep proper records has been struck off the health professionals’ register.

After a Health and Care Professions Council hearing at the Hilton Hotel in Manchester yesterday, a disciplinary committee found that Peter Collins’ fitness to practise was impaired.

Mr Collins, who used to work for NHS Bolton, was accused of misconduct and faced a hearing before the council’s conduct and competence committee.

NHS Bolton sacked him after an investigation.

Mr Collins, who lives in Ashton-in-Makerfield, was accused of six infringements, broken down into 57 individual allegations.

He was accused of: Å Not providing prompt treatment to three patients at Waters Meeting Health Centre on two dates in late 2009. Two were proved while he was cleared of the third.

Å Being “abrupt, unhelpful, dismissive and/or intimidating”

to eight colleagues. He was cleared of all eight allegations.

Å Being “disrespectful, sarcastic, unfriendly and/or abrupt”

to four patients. Two were proved and two were not proved.

Å Not properly accounting for his time on 11 separate dates between April and October 2009.

Six allegations were proved but he was cleared of five.

Å Not keeping accurate or contemporaneous patient records between April and November, 2009. Thirty of the 32 allegations were proved.

The panel head that Mr Collins had used cocaine but had not used it since last February and had never used it while on duty.

Mr Collins told the hearing: “I have taken a long and hard look at myself and how to approach the future and stop blaming everybody else and take responsibility."

Kate Stone, defending Mr Collins, said Mr Collins practised competently and without concerns for more than 15 years.

She added that some “positive things” were said about Mr Collins and that some patients would ask for him specifically because they liked his sense of humour.

Miss Stone said that personal difficulties went “some way” to explaining what happened and that he had since sought help.

“The perceptions among his colleagues was that Mr Collins had changed,” she said.

Chairman Gillian Fleming said the panel could not be satisfied that there would be no repeat of Mr Collins’ behaviour and ordered that his name be struck from the register.

Å Last month The Bolton News reported that Mr Collins was given a nine-month sentence suspended for two years and a 12-month supervision order after admitting a charge of affray for pinning his now estranged wife to a wall at her Tonge Fold Home, holding a knife to her throat and threatening to kill her.