Gateshead GP suspended for fake drug prescriptions

Dr John McClelland created fake drug prescriptions while working at Crowhall Medical Practice in Gateshead

A GP who wrote fraudulent drug prescriptions has been suspended from the profession for a year.

John McClelland created fake drug prescriptions 22 times while working in Gateshead, a Medical Practitioners Tribunal heard.

In 2019 at North Tyneside Magistrates' Court he was given a community order with a three-month curfew. The tribunal called his offence "serious".

Dr McClelland admitted his actions were "outrageous" and said he had no excuse.

The tribunal, which sat earlier in June, heard that between June and December 2018, Dr McClelland would create false prescriptions for "controlled drugs" on patient records while working at Crowhall Medical Practice in Gateshead.

He would then print the prescription off, delete it from the digital file and use the paper copy to collect the drugs from a pharmacy, the tribunal heard.

'Seriously undermine confidence'

On another occasion in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, in August 2018, he wrote a prescription for 200 tablets which he presented at a pharmacy and claimed to be collecting for his mother.

The pharmacist grew suspicious and contacted police, with Dr McClelland ultimately receiving a conditional discharge from magistrates after admitting fraud.

The tribunal said Dr McClelland's convictions "seriously undermine public confidence in the profession and the trust patients place in doctors".

In finding his "fitness to practise impaired", the tribunal decided to impose the "maximum" suspension of 12 months while acknowledging that his "dishonest conduct is remediable" and ruling "erasure" from the profession "would be disproportionate".

Dr McClelland, who qualified from the University of Aberdeen in 1996, said his offences were "despicable, shameful, and serious" but "not fundamentally incompatible with returning to medicine".