The High Court has quashed a GP’s suspension from the UK medical register after finding that the tribunal that sanctioned her had applied the wrong test for dishonesty and reversed the burden of proof.1
Sarah Alam was suspended for three months in April this year after a medical practitioners tribunal ruled that she had dishonestly made retrospective notes in practice records stating that 14 patients with chronic conditions had been invited orally for an annual review.
Alam, who was the senior partner at the Ulam Medical Centre in Blackburn, Lancashire, made the notes over the Easter weekend in 2018 to comply with the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), the system that financially rewards general practices for achieving certain standards of care.
The clinical commissioning group (CCG) that oversaw practices in Blackburn at the time found that towards the end of …
