Britain’s most successful IVF doctor was banned from running his own clinic yesterday after he was found guilty of treating patients without the correct licence.

Mohammed Taranissi was stripped of the right to be the “person responsible” for his Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). The decision means that Mr Taranissi, whose clinic boasts Britain’s best IVF success rates, will be allowed to continue treating patients only if he appoints another doctor or manager to take legal responsibility for his clinic. If he fails to do so, the clinic will have to close after its temporary licence expires on August 9.

Mr Taranissi, who rejects the charges, said last night that he would appeal. If he does, the HFEA is likely to issue special directions allowing him to complete the treatment of existing patients while the appeal is heard.

The sanction is one of the most serious imposed by the authority’s licence committee, and has been imposed only once before. Every clinic is required by law to name an appro-priately trained person as the holder of its licence. The person is required to take legal responsibility for the clinic’s work and must be HFEA approved.

The ruling follows an inquiry into claims that Mr Taranissi treated patients at an unlicensed clinic in 2006. The clinic, the Reproductive Genetics Institute, was Mr Taranassi’s second in London.

The allegations formed part of a BBC Panorama programme, over which the doctor has started libel proceedings. It is a criminal offence to perform IVF and some other fertility procedures without a licence from the HFEA, and the matter is also the subject of investigations by the police and the General Medical Council.

In January the HFEA obtained warrants to search both clinics, saying that the doctor had failed to provide it with information needed to investigate the allegations. The raids were ruled illegal by the High Court this month, and the authority agreed to pay most of Mr Taranissi’s costs.

That judicial review did not consider the substance of the charges against Mr Taranissi, and had no bearing on the HFEA’s regulatory action. The authority’s licence committee met on July 13, and announced yesterday that it was satisfied that Mr Taranissi had committed a “serious breach” of the law by treating patients at an unlicensed clinic.

“The committee considered that the clinic [the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre] is a successful one, much appreciated by patients, and Mr Taranissi is a dedicated physician,” it said. “However, the committee did not think he had taken sufficient cognisance of the legal requirements of a person responsible to continue to act in that capacity.”

The authority has offered the centre a six-month licence, provided that a new person responsible is found. Mr Taranissi was not seeking a new licence for the Reproductive Genetics Institute. Members of the HFEA’s executive had argued that the licence should not be renewed at all.

Mr Taranissi questioned whether three weeks was sufficient time to appoint a new person responsible, but said that he welcomed the decision to offer a licence.

“We are pleased to have been told that we can continue to work, and my priority now is my patients,” he said. “The last few months have been extremely distressing for all our patients and staff. The new licence is not for as long a period as we had hoped for, but we are confident that this will be extended and that we can put the unpleasant past behind us and concentrate on doing what we do best.

“The current situation follows the events in January of this year when the chief executive of the HFEA gave what was later described by a High Court judge as ‘seriously defective’ and ‘highly misleading’ evidence to a magistrate in order to obtain warrants to raid our clinic. The High Court subsequently found that these warrants had been unlawfully obtained and we are similarly confident that the grounds for this latest decision will be shown to be wrong.

“HFEA regulation imposes a huge bureaucratic burden on those licensed by them. The HFEA have asked that we appoint a new person responsible to work with me as medical director of the centre. We have made a number of new appointments in the last two months to assist with this regulatory burden and the other requirements of new European legislation.”

Explore Health

• Expert Advice

• Health Features

• Mental Health

• Alternative Medicine

• Child Health