A nurse who did not know where in the human body the appendix is has been suspended from the medical register.

Gurminder Toor, a nurse at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, was also unable to calculate medication doses.

On one occasion, when asked how many 1.25mg tablets were required for a dose of 6.25mg, he said “500”.

A panel at the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) found more than 70 charges of incompetency proved.

Toor was also described as unable to use a syringe properly, not knowing what certain drugs were for, not understanding medical terminology, and thinking a hernia was a blood clot.

The NMC panel said: “[Toor’s errors] had the potential to result in serious harm to the patients in his care and this had been avoided only by the interventions of the nurses who were supervising him.”

He was suspended by the NMC for 18 months, “for the protection of members of the public and in the public interest”.