South Shields doctor who missed fatal blood clot has disciplinary restrictions removed

Dr Fardeen Haque was suspended for a year for serious misconduct after a medical tribunal heard how he retrospectively altered the 58-year-old South Shields woman’s records following her death in 2013.

The patient told Dr Haque she feared she was developing a blood clot in her left leg on visiting him at the town’s Flagg Court Health Centre on March 1.

She died four days later following a cardiac arrest after Dr Haque “incorrectly diagnosed” the problem as a cyst.

He then altered her notes on three occasions over the next three months with a 2018 independent tribunal determining that one of the amendments “was dishonest and also fell seriously below the standards expected of a registered medical practitioner”.

A second Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal conditionally lifted the suspension in 2019 after concluding that “Dr Haque’s insight into his misconduct had started to develop but was in its infancy”.

A third hearing has now removed all restrictions after deciding “there is a significant amount of evidence that Dr Haque fully reflected on his misconduct and has taken the necessary actions to ensure there is no repetition”.

The evidence included testimonials about his insight from a colleague, pharmacist, educational supervisor and mentoring doctors.

In a statement presented to the latest hearing in Manchester, Dr Haque also said: “I have seen the gravity of my poor judgement in this time and accept that this was a serious transgression from the standards of acceptable practice for a doctor and indeed a departure from my usual character.”

Tribunal chairman Charles Thomas wrote in a newly-published report: “The tribunal considered that the public interest has been served by Dr Haque’s period of suspension and further period of conditional registration.

“Further, it considered it was not in the public interest to restrict the practice of an otherwise clinically competent doctor.”

The case was also investigated by police with Dr Haque acquitted at crown court of attempting to pervert the cause of justice.

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