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A pharmacist who made 669 fraudulent claims for New Medicine Service consultations over a three-year period totalling more than £50,000 has been suspended by the General Pharmaceutical Council.

The regulator’s fitness-to-practise committee handed Riza Shahid Ali a 12-month suspension after hearing he made claims between February 2020 and March 2023 for consultations that did not take place while working for Rowlands Pharmacy. The claims for NHS payments came to £50,416.81 which was repaid by the pharmacy chain.

The committee heard evidence from the pharmacy’s professional support manager, who produced examples from its electronic patient records showing Ali falsified entries to show consultations had taken place with patients even though he had failed to meet the service’s protocols. 

Record showed NMS intervention took place even though patient had died

In one case, he falsified a record to show a patient, who was dispensed Felodipine MR 2.5mg tablets on February 10, 2021, had received an NMS intervention and follow-up in the space of 17 seconds on August 18, 2022, even though the patient died on May 14, 2021.

Another record showed a patient, who was prescribed a Salbutamol 100mcg/dose inhaler on April 28, 2021, was not engaged into the NMS service until June 27, 2022. According to the record, the patient’s engagement, intervention and follow-up took place within one minute on June 27, 2022.

Another record showed engagement with a patient took place on August 29, 2020, but the intervention and follow-up was recorded eight months later on April 24, 2021.

A fourth example provided to the committee was a record that showed a patient was dispensed Propranolol 40mg on February 23, 2021, with engagement into the NMS, intervention and follow-up not occurring until 28 January 2022, 11 months later.

The committee also heard the medicine was prescribed for anxiety instead of blood pressure “and therefore would be outside the scope of an NMS”.

The professional support manager, who told the committee that Ali had said he read the pharmacy’s standard operating procedure for NMS management, reported him to the GPhC on June 23, 2023.

Registrant knew NMS entries were not innocent or reckless error

A former regional manager for L Rowland and Co who also gave evidence said she visited Ali’s pharmacy on two occasions and spoke to him about her concerns over NMS submissions on the second occasion when she interviewed him as part of an investigation.

She said that during the interview, Ali admitted making false NMS claims. He told the committee his admissions were false and resulted from undue pressure being exerted on him, a claim the committee rejected.

It also rejected Ali’s claim that some of the entries on the system could have been made by colleagues or a locum. The former regional manager told the committee that while it was possible other members of staff could have entered the false information, “only a pharmacist was permitted to insert the intervention or follow-up dates on the system as those represented clinical stages of the NMS process”.

The committee concluded Ali “knew that NMS entries he completed were not eligible for the NMS service and were not the result of an innocent or otherwise reckless error”.

Dishonest conduct breached five standards

It also rejected his explanation that an “innocent error” occurred because he entered information “from his personal recollection of having spoken to patients”.

“The only proper inference that could be drawn was that this information had been inserted to falsify the records and that it was not the result of an innocent error of recollection,” the committee concluded.

It found Ali’s “dishonest conduct” breached five standards, covering patients receiving information to make informed decisions, acting with honesty and trustworthiness, taking responsibility and demonstrating leadership, monitoring patients to ensure they receive safe and effective care and maintaining, developing and using professional knowledge and skills.

The committee said Ali “repeatedly behaved dishonestly over a three-year period”, had failed “to adequately monitor patients’ use of medication” and did not “demonstrate he had taken meaningful steps to remediate his dishonest behaviour”.

The committee gave him a 12-month suspension, subject to review.