A struck-off dentist who was said to have a ‘filthy’ dental practice has had his doleance challenge against Manx Care thrown out in the high court.

Leslie Hanson’s name was erased from the General Dental Council register, his registration having been suspended with immediate effect over concerns about his practice’s level of cleanliness and infection control.

A hearing by the General Dental Council’s professional conduct committee earlier this year identified a ‘real risk to the safety of patients and staff’ on account of Mr Hanson’s failings, his persistent lack of insight and the absence of any evidence of remorse or remediation.

Inspectors had raised concerns as to his fitness to practice following a post-lockdown visit in September 2020 to one of his surgeries.

The Department of Health and Social Care then referred a complaint to the dental profession’s regulator.

Witnesses highlighted rust, cobwebs, and a general state of dilapidation in the practice, with one describing it as ‘filthy’,

Mr Hanson, who stood as a candidate in Peel in the 2011 and 2016 general elections, did not exercise his right to appeal the decision made on February 7 this year to erase him from the register.

But he lodged a doleance claim in May against the DHSC’s successor, Manx Care, claiming it did not have the authority to make a complaint to the General Dental Council.

He claimed he had not been notified about the precise nature of the complaint until August last year.

Now Deemster Andrew Corlett has ruled in favour of an application by Manx Care to have the doleance challenge struck out, saying that the claim had been brought well out of time.

He said in judgment: ‘A great deal of time, effort, costs and resources has been put into the adjudication of the issues brought up against Mr Hanson.

‘Indeed, I would go so far as to say it would be bizarre for this court to entertain a challenge now after the hearing process has been completed. ‘It would undermine the entire basis of the regulatory process if this type of challenge were allowed to proceed at this very late time.’

Mr Hanson did not attend the professional conduct committee hearing due to an ongoing health issue and it went ahead in his absence.

At the time of the inspectors’ visit in September 2020, Mr Hanson owned two dental practices, in Peel and Onchan, both of which were private practices.

All dental practices, both NHS and private, were ordered to close in March 2020 when emergency legislation came into force as part of the government’s response to the Covid pandemic.

It was decided, when it was possible for dental practices to re-open in June 2020, that inspectors acting on behalf of the DHSC would visit all dental practices to assess whether they were compliant with Covid-19 infection control measures before patients were allowed back in.

The visit to Mr Hanson’s private dental practice was carried out by a Primary Care team of three inspectors. In light of the concerns they raised, the DHSC was unable to sign off on the re-opening of the practice and given the extent of the problems identified, a referral was made to the GDC.

Issues concerning cross infection control and/or decontamination included unclean furniture, sterilized instruments not stored correctly and appropriate disinfectants not being used to clean surfaces. Tap water rather than distilled water was used within dental systems, there was no cross-infection policy and a six-monthly decontamination audit was not carried out. Mr Hanson was found not to be complying with regulations on the use of x-ray equipment or adhering to policies relating to Covid-19 risk prevention and control.

One witness told the committee: ‘The practice is filthy, the equipment is old, there’s corrosion on the foot pedal and chair.’

Another said: ‘There was dirty equipment, cobwebs, and rusted and breached equipment. The chair which the patients were supposed to sit on for their treatment was ripped which meant that it could not be cleaned properly.’

In his witness statement, Mr Hanson said: ‘The fact is that on average I only saw one patient a week there [at the practice] so there was no need to clean the surgery daily.’

He said it had been more economical to sterilise his instruments in the other practice the evening before an appointment.