A PARAMEDIC who falsely claimed he had saved a patient’s life and posted a fake picture of the incident online to drum up traffic for his jewellery website has been suspended for a year.

Simon Williams posted photos on Instagram showing the police response to an incident in Colchester, calling a man who punched his response vehicle a “t**t”.

He posted another of a selfie before a woman went into surgery.

He admitted he was simply trying to publicise his jewellery website and he embellished descriptions of the incidents to get more followers.

Williams posted a photo of blood on the ground with the caption: “This is the aftermath of a stabbing. It is hard to believe but I managed to save his life.”

It was in fact the scene of an accident and Williams admitted in his interview he had invented the knife attack, the Health Professions Council heard.

He said: “I just hoped that they would think they must follow me.”

Williams also posted a photo with the caption: “Just had an idiot drunk male punch the door mirror on my response vehicle, then slap his girlfriend and ripped her shirt.

“T**t. Now the police dealing. Normal behaviour for this town.”

When his comment was put to him at an interview, Williams said: “It’s really bad. It was 11 years of rage coming out through Instagram.”

Williams also posted a selfie at Colchester General Hospital with the caption: “I’m in Colchester Hospital theatres, just about to participate in surgery on a female appendectomy.

“Obviously my priority was a selfie lol #selfie.”

In his interview, Williams said: “I wasn’t thinking, was I? One hundred per cent hands up.”

But he added: “People outside don’t understand our dark humour. Anyone who worked here would’ve found that funny.”

Another photo showed the electrocardiogram of a patient during cardiac arrest.

Laith Dilaimi, for the Health Professions Panel, said: “His private medical information has been posted on Instagram for the world to see.

“To a certain extent all of these photos contain medical information and personal details.

“This was clearly behaviour that could damage the public’s confidence in him or his profession.

“The purpose of posting makes it worse.

“This isn’t just a public spirited attempt to get the public to see the life of a paramedic. It’s an attempt to drum up sales for his jewellery business.”

Professor Ian Hughes, chairman of the Health Professions panel, said: “He took images of patients and their details when they had not given permission to do so and abused that information for his own motives.

“We considered this to be an extremely serious failing in the registrant’s professional duties to respect patients’ confidentiality and dignity, and which took place over a period of time on more than one occasion.

“The acts of the registrant were a serious departure of acceptable paramedic practice.

“The registrant, by his actions, has brought the paramedic profession into disrepute and has undermined public confidence in it.

“We noted there were no findings in this case that related to the registrant’s clinical practice.

“The misconduct concerned the behaviour of the registrant that fell so far below the standards expected of him as a paramedic as to be virtually inremediable at this stage by any realistic, proportionate and workable conditions.

“The purpose of a suspension is to achieve a sanction in a case where the misconduct falls short of requiring that the practitioner should be permanently removed from the register, but where a mark of seriousness of the misconduct must be made.

“In our judgement, this is just that type of case.”

Prof Hughes said the panel thought a striking off order would be disproportionate and punitive at this time.

He went on to described Mr Williams as extremely unprofessional, unintelligent and reckless.

He said: “He had been in safe and effective clinical practice for a number of years prior to these events and he could become again a valuable member of the paramedic profession in the future, should he so choose.”

Williams will be suspended for 12 months from July 15. He was given 28 days to appeal the sanction.

The East of England Ambulance Service has confirmed it no longer employs Williams.