A family doctor who had a brief sexual relationship with a patient has been faulted by the Health and Disability Commissioner, but will not face further action.
Ron Paterson says in a decision released on Tuesday the doctor's conduct was ethically inappropriate, but he had recognised the problem and taken the necessary steps.
The commissioner says the unnamed general practitioner had a brief intimate relationship, including sex once, with a woman who had both consulted him as a doctor and taken her young daughter to him.
The woman later complained about the doctor's conduct, between late 2008 and the middle of last year.
Mr Paterson says the doctor recognised the warning signs and stopped seeing the woman as a patient as soon as the relationship began.
He says both were vulnerable, but that was no excuse for the doctor.
Mr Paterson says the doctor admitted his mistake and now has a colleague as a mentor.
