"This is an excellent opportunity… maybe [Person B] can help."
A medical tribunal heard that a GP hatched a plan to supply fake Covid-19 vaccination certificates to patients who hadn’t had the jab in exchange for cash.
Dr Sonali Mukherjee-Bose had been working at the Barlby Surgery, in west London, and Zen Healthcare, which provides private GP appointments at its five branches across the city.
The tribunal heard she approached a junior employee (Mr A) to help her create the fake vaccination certificates on Pinnacle, the platform that stores vaccine data for the NHS.
In return, Dr Mukherjee-Bose promised Mr A “good renumeration”, saying he could earn his entire month’s salary in just a few hours.
Dr Mukherjee-Bose said she had “many waiting” for the certificates and told him it was “easy work” with “no risk”.
The GP also asked him if a colleague (Person B) would also get involved, saying they would both be paid.
In one text sent to Mr A in October 2021, Dr Mukherjee-Bose wrote:
“This is an excellent opportunity… maybe [Person B] can help. Plse can we speak this evening? I have many waiting.”
Another read: “Happy to speak to [Person B] too ot (sic) is easy work there is no risk and good remuneration (you would probably make same as your salary for a couple of hours work a month).”
Mr A claimed Dr Mukherjee-Bose also asked him to backdate certificates of the Pfizer jab and asked him if he knew Pfizer vaccine batch numbers.
He did not reply but reported the texts to his manager, who referred the matter to another doctor, who in turn reported Dr Mukherjee-Bose to the General Medical Council.
An investigation was launched and when questioned, the GP accepted sending the texts and that she’d intended to create the fake Covid-19 certificates for people who were unvaccinated and not patients at her surgery.
Dr Mukherjee-Bose claimed a private Russian patient and two other individuals, who had received the jab abroad and were living in the Middle East, had “pressured” her for the fake documentation.
She claimed she was acting “under duress” from external parties and never went ahead with the idea after concluding it would be “morally wrong”.
But the tribunal said there were “inconsistencies” in her evidence, especially surrounding who had contacted her for a fake certificate and their nationalities.
Dr Mukherjee-Bose denied all the charges against her, but the panel found her guilty of misconduct.
The tribunal concluded:
“Dr Mukherjee-Bose stated that, ‘if these messages were sent by me it is the worst possible thing I have done in my career’.”
“She frankly accepted that if an incorrect Covid vaccine batch number was added to a medical record for a patient who had received the vaccination outside of the UK, that this would be dishonest.
“The Tribunal has determined that not only was she requesting certificates for individuals who had not received Covid-19 vaccination in the UK, but also for persons who had not received Covid-19 vaccination.”
She also deleted the texts to Mr A and falsely claimed they had been lost when she “rebooted her phone” to cover up what she had done.
Dr Mukherjee-Bose faces the possibility of being struck off in January 2025 if the panel decides her fitness to practise is impaired by reason of misconduct.
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