Doctor admits faking patient appointments

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 hearing under way in Manchester. The doctor has admitted altering appointment schedules to create gaps on numerous occasions when he was available for consultation.

Dr Thomson has been called before a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing, which has been scheduled for 10 days.

He has admitted to the tribunal a string of allegations relating to appointment slots being deleted and falsely claiming he had either seen or spoken to patients.

Dr Thomson also admitted he had l ogged 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 MPTS hearing has found Dr Thomson’s actions on a number of occasions were either misleading, dishonest or both. The hearing will now move on to a second stage and additional evidence is expected to be presented in the coming days.

Dr Thomson was not available for comment at the time of going to press.