Doctor altered patient records

Dr Farhoud Wadih Moujaes, who was based at The Surgery, Manchester Road, Haslingden, has also admitted a second allegation of changing a patient's computerised records.

Dr Moujaes, who trained in Italy before moving to the East Lancashire surgery, appeared at the first day of a four-day General Medical Council hearing yesterday.

The GMC, the independent body set up to promote good practice in medicine, is investigating claims that he amended computerised records in relation to two patients.

The doctor qualified in Rome in 1989 and registered as a doctor in the UK a year later.

Dr Moujaes admitted that on October 24, 2002, he went into a patient's computerised medical records at The Surgery and altered information about a mother requesting that she did not want her child to be given an MMR jab.

Following a complaint from the patient's father after the jab was given, it was claimed that Dr Moujaes altered the computer records to say Mum said she did not want him to have MMR after he was given the vaccination'.

Later the same year in December, Dr Moujaes admitted a further allegation of changing a patient's computerised records after a complaint was made to The Surgery.

The hearing heard that more than a month after seeing the patient he went back into their records to make changes to information.

The GMC has confirmed that he is still registered and is working at a surgery in Manchester.

A spokesman for the GMC said: "Dr Moujaes is still registered and able to work.

"If the panel find against the doctor they will have every sanction available to them, with the lower sanctions being something like a reprimand, which stays on your record, through to suspension from the register or the most serious being erasure from the register."

The panel is made up of a mixture of five medical and lay people, including a legal assessor.

Dr Moujaes will again appear before the adjudication panel tomorrow at the fitness to practice hearing at St James' Building, Manchester.