A London doctor who produced fake timesheets so that he would get paid for hours he didn’t work at the height of the Covid pandemic has been struck off.
Dr Tariq Al-Jabary was working as a locum consultant at Orpington Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Bromley when he submitted “falsified timesheets” covering the period from January to May 2021, according to a Fitness to Practice Hearing.
The panel determined that Dr Al-Jabary had not obtained the appropriate authorisation for timesheets he submitted and produced a false signature instead.
One timesheet for the week ending January 17, 2021 appeared to be signed by an “L XXX” or “J XXX”, both names which had not previously been seen before, the hearing was told.
These printed names and signatures bore a “remarkable similarity” to those for subsequent timesheets which Dr Al-Jabary admitted to completing and adding the “client authorisation” signature himself.
Giving evidence, Dr Al-Jabary claimed that he had asked the ward manager at the time to sign his timesheets as she worked a Monday to Friday schedule and was the most senior person available to him whilst working at the Orpington.
However, he was “unable to say” whether this person’s name was in fact “L/J XXX” and the only description he was able to give was that she was the ward manager, white and “possibly brunette”.
The Director of People at King’s College NHS Trust, which operates both hospitals, said in evidence that there was “no one with the surname” matching those provided on the timesheets by Dr Al-Jabary during the period.
The panel concluded that the “purported authorised signatures on Dr Al-Jabary’s first four timesheets were not genuine”.
It was later proven that Dr Al-Jabary’s access swipe card had not been used on dates that he claimed to have worked.
Staff members at the Trust had raised concerns that Dr Al-Jabary had not been present at the hospital for days that he claimed to have worked on his timesheet, according to emails submitted as evidence.
Responding to their concerns, a staff member named as Mr E replied saying “we have not had any more CVs so can’t afford to let him go”.
In evidence submitted to the panel, another employee named Dr B said the hospitals had been grappling with “staffing issues” due to the Covid pandemic and a “large number of vacancies due to sudden loss of geriatric consultants, as well as extra wards for the Covid patients and staff absent due to illness with Covid”.
They added: “November 2020 until March 2021 was our worst period during the pandemic, and I would describe it as ‘horrific’. Therefore, during that period of time, I was of the opinion that it was better to have a good doctor there 80 per cent of the time, rather than no doctor at all.
“I felt that timekeeping was not necessarily important if the clinical work of the doctor remained good. When Dr Al-Jabary was there, he was very good at his job.”
Dr Al-Jabary said that his submission of the false timesheets had been an honest mistake.
But the Tribunal concluded that Dr Al-Jabary had “undermined public trust in the profession” and that his behaviour was “cunning and devious”.
It also noted that Dr Al-Jabary had “not fully admitted to deliberately misleading others and had portrayed his conduct as mistakes and errors”.
However, it accepted that Dr Al- Jabary was “recognised as a good colleague and there had been no issues of concern from patients”.
Dr al-Jabary’s name was struck off the medical register.
