A senior Tayside doctor who fiddled appointment slots over a five-year period has admitted logging a faked patient named M Mouse.
Dr Andrew Thomson was a GP at Forfar’s Academy Health Centre at the time of the offences which are the subject of a professional body hearing now under way in Manchester.
The highly-regarded doctor has admitted altering appointment schedules to create gaps on numerous occasions when he was available for consultation.
Dr Thomson, who graduated from the University of Dundee in 1996, has been called before a Medical Practitioners Tribunal in Manchester, which got under way this week and has been scheduled for ten days.
He has admitted to the tribunal a string of allegations relating to appointment slots being deleted, falsely claiming he had either seen or spoken to patients and on one occasion making an appointment for a patient he knew was an inpatient at Ninewells Hospital.
Dr Thomson also admitted that on September 16 at 2.59pm he logged a 3.40pm appointment with the front desk system at the practice for a patient in the name of M Mouse, filling a gap in his schedule created shortly before by an administrative staff member.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service Hearing has found that Dr Thomson’s actions on a number of occasions were either misleading, dishonest or both.
Referring to the matters admitted by Dr Thomson and found proved, tribunal chair Mr Robin Ince said: “By reason of the matters set out your fitness to practice is impaired because of your misconduct.”
Consequently, the hearing will now move on to a second stage and additional evidence is expected to be presented in the coming days.
The three-person tribunal panel, comprising a legally qualified chair, a ley member and a medical figure, may then decide to place a warning on the doctor’s registration.
If the tribunal decides that Dr Thomson’s fitness to practice is impaired, the case will continue to a third stage to determine whether sanction should be imposed.
Options available to the tribunal range from ending the case with no further action to suspension or removal of a doctor from the medical register.
Dr Thomson, who also serves on the Tayside Local Medical Committee and is currently a GP at Brechin Health Centre, was not available for comment.
NHS Tayside and Brechin Health Centre also said they could make no comment on the matter.
MPTS tribunals make independent decisions about a doctor’s fitness to practise.
The General Medical Council investigates doctors and brings a case against them to the MPTS.
