POLICE are investigating after the wife of a former North Yorkshire GP discovered her medical records had been fabricated over a 25-year period, the Evening Press can reveal today.
Anita Pheby found her records began being forged just after she and her husband, Derek, left Coxwold, near Easingwold, for Somerset in the 1970s.
A detective from Avon and Somerset Police's serious crime group has interviewed several patients in North Yorkshire who also believe their records have been altered or fabricated.
Medical service staff who believe that their characters have been blackened and careers hampered have also been interviewed by Det Con Nigel Strachan.
He confirmed he was looking into possible links between their allegations and the case of Mrs Pheby, whose records include notes from a woman psychiatrist from Somerset, stating that she was one of her patients undergoing psychiatric treatment.
He said the psychiatrist had subsequently confirmed that Mrs Pheby had never been her patient and it was not her signature on the records.
He confirmed that a detailed investigation was being undertaken into why such forgeries might have been carried out.
"One line of inquiry being followed is to establish whether there is any connection between Anita Pheby's forged records and an event in the 1970s when Dr Pheby was a doctor in North Yorkshire," he said.
Dr Pheby is now principal lecturer at the University of the West of England in Bristol, and director of the unit of applied epidemiology. Until 1995, he was director of the South Western Regional Cancer Register, representing the UK on the permanent steering committee of the European network of cancer registries.
The Evening Press has spoken to three patients from North Yorkshire who have been interviewed by police, all of whom believe their medical records have been altered.
One woman said letters had been written saying she had had appointments with a doctor which she had never had, and that notes had been written, inaccurately stating that she had taken extra tablets.
Another woman said she believed both her GP's notes and hospital notes had been tampered with.
Updated: 10:32 Thursday, March 11, 2004
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