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

They had no option to ‘throw the book at her’ because this person referred herself to the GMC, after a partner had spotted anomalies in her calendar.

Somehow I think this fact is going to be conveniently forgotten many times in this thread.....

I think it's right that this kind of disciplinary process is a matter of public record and is in the public domain. And whilst I don't believe this one particular woman "deserves" to have been hung drawn and quartered to the extent that the papers have gone for, I think that restricting press coverage is a very thorny issue.

She was lazy and tried to play the system - she isn’t the only one - you have to pay for suitable childcare - with contingency - she was more than capable financially to do this
I suspect she and other doctors have been doing this for years and it needs to be stopped

it was dishonest- it should have been dealt with in house though - and certainly not in the papers

Thats where I do feel the sympathy as there are many doing the same thing - it’s sad you have to check doctors aren’t cheating the system but some always will - so it needs a robust system to stamp it out

You actually claim to have seen actual people you haven't seen?

This was an extra locum shift that she agreed to do, even though she knew she couldn't cover it. I don't know how anyone would be ok with this.

Every single one of us has probably had an emergency at work and had to leave, this was not the case here. She lied and falsified patient records. Then continued to lie. It baffles me how anyone is ok with that.

Play stupid games - win stupid prizes. Sounds fair

Locums aren’t paid huge amounts these days and it is hard to get locum work.

For what it is worth you could get disciplined for what you are doing if it is uncovered. Especially as you are doing it regularly and are effectively falsifying documents and records. It just takes one person looking for an excuse to cause you problems. That could very well be a resentful colleague. Speaking as a manager this is exactly the type of thing staff reported to me about their colleagues. So it didn’t matter what I thought about it personally.

LOLOL your medical records are faked and your main concern is what life is like for the GP? I dont believe this for one second. What she did was appalling and no amount of justifying it because she's a woman or a parent makes it ok.

I'd imagine she referred herself cos the GP practice said if she didn't, they would

She should have paid a babysitter to fetch the children at 18 everyday and bring them to her house. That would mean around 1-1 1/2 hours per day to pay. There are students who would happily do this for 20£. What do you think other parents are doing?

GP workload is horrific. I have sympathy for the situation she was in but absolutely none for her actions.

My understanding is she put a patient in her face to face afternoon diary even though they had already been spoken to in the morning and dealt with. Then a few days later someone questioned her about why there were no notes for the face to face consult, and she added notes for a fake consult to a patients record. Medical records are legal documents. A patient had made up information added to their record, its easy to imagine how this could impact care.

She also denied it initially.

GPs work in isolation. You have to be able to trust that they are honest and competent. If someone gets caught doing something like this they arent meeting professional standards.

Her situation was no different from any other working parent. We aren't "put into" it. Every working parent has to take into account whether they are reliably going to be able to pick up their children when necessary and make arrangements accordingly. I, for instance, have an arrangement with a childminder whereby I or my DH tries to collect by 6 but the minder accepts that we might be late sometimes and we pay a bit extra on those days. It has bugger all to do with misogyny, it's just the reality of working when you have children, whatever sex you are.

In this case, the doctor could have, for instance, arranged from someone else to be available to pick up the kids, e.g.. her children' father, a childminder or au pair, or she could have employed someone like a childminder or nanny with more flexibility, or specified to her employers that she was never going to be available for the last two sessions so they paid her less.

You haven't even read the report properly - there isn't one less practising GP, there is one less for a five month period. She can resume work after that.

Except a quick google search for male doctor / gp falsifying timesheets brings back pages of struck off / reprimanded men. Your husband as a doctor doesn’t see why this is such a big deal? Defrauding / falsifying records? He doesn’t see this as bringing his profession into disrepute? Just not that big a deal given the headlines around access to GPs and the woes of the NHS? If she needed to be somewhere for a certain time then she should have gone the right way about things and set her working hours accordingly. The article says she’s a part time locum GP so the reality is she could have just said I’m not working past such and such a time. This isn’t a she’s only got busted because she’s a woman thing. She’s got busted because she is trying to defraud a business and is falsifying medical records.

Kids father, relative, friends, nanny.

I’m not sympathetic either. I can’t stand this type of fraud and dishonesty.

unfortunately there is a culture of dishonestly in the NHS among some staff. Look how ridiculously high the sickness rates are. I know there are reasons why the sickness rates might be higher than for other workplaces (more women, physical work etc) but the amount of sick leave is ridiculous.

She's not trustworthy. So she's breached her professional standards. Lying so you sneak off to do personal things (however worthy or necessary) is out of order and does cause risk.

I mean she could be been sneaking off to a crack den and just said it was the school run to try and make it look less bad. She could've lied about way worse dozens of times before she got caught.

Either way she can't be trusted.

She lied, falsified records, presumably using genuine patient names - she should be struck off permanently.

To be a professional requires one to behave professionally.

She took on additional locum work without making adequate childcare provisions. She could have organised someone else to collect her children.

Then she lied and falsified organisational and medical records. Patients could have had appointments when she had blocked her diary.

That’s gross misconduct in any organisation. Her reputation is in tatters. Would you want her as your GP?

Just because you are a parent, it doesn’t give you the right to take the piss and lie.

The difficult truth is that once a doctor knowingly falsifies medical records, it crosses a line that can’t be ignored. Patient notes aren’t just admin, they’re legal documents that other clinicians rely on, and trust in those records is absolutely fundamental. Medical notes affect people's well-being, the treatment they are prescribed, whether they refer on for tests etc

What she did put people at risk, and she doubled down and lied about it until she had no choice but to come clean. There is no way I would ever want her as my doctor. What she did was terrible.

She did the wrong thing, but I feel a lot of compassion for her. Many GP practices are notoriously inflexible and often run over - what are parents supposed to do? Book childcare until 7 (not usually available), not work (leading to a workforce shortage), work part time (not possible for many families)? It wasn’t like she was nipping out at 3.30 for the school run. This is a much deeper issue about the structure of clinical work (and other professions) being completely at odds with having children. I’m sure she 100% ‘owning’ her actions right now but take a pause to think about the huge pressure she is under to support her children and the six million other things she will be balancing as a woman. We have to do better - fuck the ‘it’s your choice to have children’ - without some of us making this choice, we won’t have a society in 50 years! We also make choices to have children but we don’t choose the KOL increases, illnesses, LDs, bullying and everything that goes with it. All to be dealt with and often by Mum - we have to be as flexible and support of each other as possible at work and not doing that has led to this woman taking awful action.

Why would she be paid if she is a locum? It doesn't sound like her employers at the time of this incident are going to take her back.

This is on my Facebook feed and the comments are really sympathetic. Thousands of likes supporting her. Which is a shock for a daily mail post!

It’s also worrying this poor lady has her face all over the papers. This could have a terrible effect on her mental heath.

Why does @DontFallInTheHaHa keep mentioning children being left in an empty school?? This would never happen obviously as staff members would wait with the children if parents are late for pick-up and then the parent would be fined and perhaps banned from the service if it wasn't a one-off. But the idea that lying is the only option as otherwise children would be abandoned in empty schools is a fallacy. It seems she wanted the overtime but didn't want to do the full hour or risk it going over that. If the extra hour took her finishing time to 6 at the earliest assuming no delays and her childcare shut at 6 is shows she never had any intention of doing the full hour and should not have signed up to do the overtime, which, for all we know, another colleague may have been happy to do in full.