TONY Blair's former GP, who left the medical profession under a cloud, has become a wealthy man after selling two North-East care homes.

The on-off career of Dr Sivagurunathan Srirangalingam, known as Dr Sri, ended in January with his "voluntary" erasure from the medical register.

The Trimdon Station GP, who is understood to have treated Sedgefield MP Mr Blair and his family before the 1997 General Election, never fully recovered after being found guilty of serious professional misconduct in May 1999.

A year later, the General Medical Council (GMC) GMC was told he had made blunder after blunder in the treatment of a lollipop lady, a suicidal schizophrenic and a frail housewife.

Despite his attempts to rehabilitate his medical career, he was still the subject of conditions imposed by the GMC when a fresh complaint from a patient prompted him to step down from the medical register.

Apart from his work as a GP, Dr Sri also developed a stake in the region's care home sector in the late 1980s.

His first acquisition was The Willows Nursing Home, in Sedgefield, which he bought from the local authority in 1988.

In 1995, Dr Sri began the construction of Willowdene Residential Care Home, on an adjoining site. Together, the properties include 20 single bedrooms and four twin bedrooms.

The properties stand in their own grounds and have gardens and car parking. They were sold with planning permission for a 16-bedroom extension. Work on the extension had already begun at the time of the sale.

Following his erasure from the medical register, Dr Sri decided to put his care homes up for sale.

Yesterday, the Newcastle office of Christie and Co, which specialises in the sale and acquisition of care homes in the region, reported the completed sales of Dr Sri's homes.

The new owners are Jennifer Houghton and her husband, from Gateshead, who already own a string of care homes in the North-East.

While the asking price for the freehold properties was £495,000, Christie and Co would only say the Willows and Willowdene sold for "an undisclosed figure".

The new owners plan to complete the extension to bring the property in line with the Government's new care home standards for 2002.