Psychiatrist lied about patient she disliked

AN NHS psychiatrist faces being suspended after fabricating a report against a patient because he ‘reminded her of her father’.

A tribunal found Dr Jane McLennan’s fitness to practise was impaired after completing the ‘inaccurate and misleading’ report to an industrial tribunal involving a former Ministry of Justice employee.

The patient, known only as Mr A, had been sacked from his role in the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority where he had worked as a call handler in May 2013.

He was evaluated by 57-yearold Dr McLennan, based at the Edinburgh Royal Hospital, in July 2014. She filed a report falsely claiming he confessed to her that he had taped his conversations with ‘girning’ customers and managers ‘lied’ in his reference, to stop him gaining further employment.

The report, written in August 2014, also falsely claimed that Mr A told her he was ‘always angry, felt like hitting people at work and it was very difficult to restrain himself’.

Dr McLennan had then gone on to give false evidence against Mr A at the employment tribunal to determine his case for unfair dismissal in January 2015. She ‘maintained her report was accurate when she knew it was not’.

The Manchester-based General Medical Council’s fitness to practice tribunal noted that Dr McLennan had an ‘apparent dislike for Mr A for a number of reasons including the fact that he reminded her of her father’, who was not well at the time.

The tribunal concluded that her actions ‘breached a fundamental tenet of the medical profession, namely the requirement to act with honesty and integrity’.

It added: ‘Dr McLennan’s integrity was further damaged by the fact that she then gave evidence at an employment tribunal which was dishonest.’