12:49 – 30 September 2008

TWO doctors who put dozens of patients at risk by altering medical records have been suspended.

Husband and wife John and Mimi Mercer concocted vital heart data and rounded up cholesterol levels for up to 40 patients at the Hall Grove Group Practice in WGC.

The GMC hearing heard the Burmese couple changed coronary data to wrongly show patients did not need a medical review.

When partners at the Parkway surgery confronted Mr Mercer with the anomalies, he said he had only asked his wife to “assist him” with the records because he was recovering from a bout of flu.

The pair admitted making inappropriate amendments to patients’ medical records on March 3, 2006, but denied their actions were dishonest.

But they were found guilty following a four-day hearing last week, although Mr Mercer was cleared of inappropriately amending discharge summaries and pathology results for some patients.

Panel chairman Brian Alderman told the couple they could have posed a “serious risk to patients”. Suspending Mr Mercer for nine months, Dr Alderman said: “The panel has found your motive in altering records was to show compliance with government targets regardless of the actual level of compliance.

“The panel is particularly concerned about the editing of records of consultations held by other doctors.

“You were also dishonest in creating results which did not exist.”

He said: “You have shown some insight into your wholly inappropriate conduct by acknowledging it was wrong.

“The panel has accepted your assurance your misconduct will not be repeated and is satisfied there is no evidence of harmful deep-seated personality or attitudinal problems.”

Suspending Mrs Mercer for three months, Dr Alderman said the panel was conscious she was acting under the direction of her husband, and it was an “isolated episode of misconduct” in her career.

He added: “As a registered medical practitioner, you are required to exercise your own professional judgement and it is clear you must have known the entries you made were not justified.