To feel very sorry for this doctor

[runningpram]

I feel the way this lady has been treated is appalling.
Obviously this wasn’t the right thing to do but she wasn’t leaving early and there was no patient detriment. Why were her managers not supporting her better?
Why on earth could not this have been sorted out within the practise without a formal disciplinary process? As a working mum I really feel for her. Could someone medical shed light on why this would have been blown up into such an issue?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15422147/amp/GP-faked-medical-appointments-work-not-late-afternoon-school-run-suspended-practising-5-months.html

I am a GP and she did not do the right thing.. but I sympathise.
As A GP you have little control of what happens during the day.
I have stayed until 9pm at the surgery because I am waiting for ambulance with someone who is unwell. If a patient is suicidal or has sepsis then I will run late.. I often run an hour late anyway.. I hate it, but I also want to provide excellent care and I can’t in time allocated ( in my case 15 mins but British GP s have 10 mins.. which is even more impossible).. and I have no children.
The structure of medicine makes it impossible .. medicine needs to change in order to make parenting, having a life outside possible.
in the meantime government funding is less and less. And politicians/GMC find it easier to afford individual blame fora terrible system.

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Zero sympathy for her . She falsified records, lied and brought the profession into disrepute. She should never be allowed to practise again .

BMA is not relevant here - they are a non compulsory trade union not a medical defence union. It’s whatever defence union she was a member of eg: MDU (this is compulsory). Dealing with things “in house” in a practice sense includes GMC reporting and a period of suspension while investigation takes place similar to other professional workplaces.

Yes. You need to be trustworthy and inspire trust in the profession. She faked appointments and then lied about it when asked, and went on to falsify records. I'm NHS staff and I wouldn't want to work alongside someone like that. I'm also a Patient and I wouldn't want to be treated by someone like that. She needed to be honest and act with integrity and she proved she couldn't.

Nah, more a complete absence of sympathy for somebody supposedly intelligent thinking that she'd get away with making fraudulent claims of medical examinations so she could leave earlier than the minimum wage staff who wouldn't have the ability to just stop doing their job in case they left a bit later.

I feel dreadfully sorry for her, I work in the clinical field and appointments often over run, childcare almost always finishes at 6pm and picking up your children late is not an option. We should have a culture where she could have felt comfortable saying I must leave on time and this can’t be guaranteed with the schedule that’s been allotted to me. That this couldn’t have been dealt with in practice is shocking and suggests a horribly toxic culture there, who on earth would want to go and work there. I feel awfully sad for her, the panel who suspended her sound dreadful too

She falsified patient records. That could have serious ramifications.

There was no schedule allotted to her.

She took on extra hours and admits she was under absolutely no pressure to do so.

A schedule of appointments was clearly allotted to her or otherwise why would she need to block out the final 2 appointments? What time was her shift meant to finish? My understanding was that she just needed to guarantee leaving on time

It has been said repeatedly that she chose to take on the extra work.

I don't get it either. Yes she shouldn't have done it, but there are much worse things going on in the world right now. I can't get worked up over this.

Oh give over. She made one mistake, she doesn’t deserve to be struck off and she’s not responsible for all difficulties of all women in the corporate world. She’s been punished enough.

And in other admin type jobs, its not uncommon, if you need to leave on time, to let a phone ring out.

In other jobs people finish on time and log on again when they get home to finish whatever they were doing.

In face to face type jobs e.g. at banks or supermarkets or post offices, cashiers put out a 'closed' sign allowing themselves time to tidy up before they clock out.

They probably would, because the high fees charged by nurseries and childcare providers for late pick ups would be far more damaging and impactful to someone earning £12.21 an hour than to a woman who has just picked up £750 for a days work (average locum gp gets paid £600-900 per shift).

Can't believe that has to be spelled out.

Yes professionals get paid (a lot) more....that's their recompense for taking on extra responsibility. Nobody is forcing her at gunpoint to work as a gp, if stacking shelves at Tesco is so easy and stress free she can quit and (try to) get a job there! Although she might find it a lot harder than she (or you) are assuming.

It's not even as if she's being penalised for not being good at her job...literally the bare minimum they expect of someone getting paid such a high amount is to just physically be there for the hours she signed up to do and she couldn't even manage that.

Late the issue is that as a GP you hardly ever leave “on time”.. it is not uncommon to be still sitting there at 8 pm .. reviewing results, scripts, phoning patients, referrals.
Yep, maybe she should have considered that and falsifying notes is very bad.. but she seems to have been given a very harsh punishment. Medicine would be a poorer job and patients in a worse position if mothers cannot work within the system.

Its almost as if those whose job it is to make these decisions know more about it than those who read about it in the Daily Mail 🤔

It's scary how many GPs on here are saying they sympathise with faking patient records and that it's not a big deal. I have personally and through my family experienced shocking NHS failures that have resulted in serious disability - one would have died if not for his wife going in, finding nurses faking his obs and raising hell repeatedly. It's not okay to treat patients like this - how can we have any trust in the system if this is the attitude?

Wrong. Why don’t you bother reading properly about what this person did before posting something so daft about ‘one mistake’?

She falsified medical records, booked in fictitious appointments, effectively stole money from the taxpayer, and lied about everything when questioned. All because she couldn’t be bothered to sort out her childcare. Hope that’s clear now.

YANBU

I think the way it’s been splashed as headline news and the suspension is disproportionate

Also add to this a huge amount of misogyny

My take would be the wider question of how this doctor is working in a system where she found herself making these (wrong) decisions to enable her to leave work ON TIME (not just take the afternoon off as the DM insinuates) and collect her children from AFTER-SCHOOL CLUB (not the school run some hours before)

I hope this doctor is doing ok and getting all the support she needs.

Suicide in the medical profession is unfortunately not uncommon, especially when combined with a referral/investigation by the GMC (regulatory body for doctors)

Thank you for some clarity and a snapshot of what life is really like for a GP

she seems to have been given a very harsh punishment.

What do you think are some of the potential consequences of falsifying medical records?

She chose to do the extra hours that left her tight for time to pick up her children. No-one made her take on those hours.

She falsified a patient's medical records, putting that patient's safety at risk. A suspension for that is not in any way disproportionate.

Just like solicitors, barristers, accountants and any other senior corporate or public sector employee or professional business person then.

When my DC were children my contract of employment said 9 to 5 or as required. Sometimes I had to stay until 9pm as the duty manager, sometimes something critical blew at 5.30pm. Ordinarily I never expected to leave before 6pm.

Professional working women have appropriate paid childcare in place. It is an entirely reasonable expectation alongside not expecting a highly trained professional to make up apppointments and falsify records impacting a patient's personal data. If this were less than the tip of the iceberg, a sensible conversation could have taken place with a practice partner or the practice manager I imagine there were probably other issues rumbling and this was something that could be pinned on her.

I wouldn't want this person working at my practice and I'd be concerned if they popped up.

What if she'd done it to go play golf earlier?

Medical records have a need to be accurate.

Our previous GP practice manager stole £600k by falsification of patients records. In the end the practice was shut by the authorities.

I have noticed on my NHS app that I can see that GP staff have accessed my records when I've not been near or had test results to look at. Perhaps I should query that.

For the millionth time on this thread ...

She took on an extra locum shift. By her own admission she was not under pressure to do so from the practice. She failed to put appropriate childcare in place to cover this shift.