Jersey doctor suspended over "inappropriate" medical record access

Friday 19 November 2021

A Jersey doctor has been banned from seeing patients for seven months after he was found to have inappropriately accessed medical records.

Dr Michael Edwin Vincent was accused of accessing the medical records of 13 patients on “one or more occasions” between 5 March and 5 July 2018.

It was argued that this was “inappropriate” as the patients were not his own, and there was therefore “no clinical reason for him to access their records and he did so without their consent.”

Dr Vincent admitted accessing the records of two women – neither of whom were his patients or had given him their consent – when he did not have a clinical reason to do so.

He also admitted accessing the medical records of up to 11 other patients on more than one occasion. However, it was not proven whether all of these were not his patients, whether he accessed the records without their consent and whether he did so without a clinical reason.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal considered whether Dr Vincent, who qualified at the University of London in 1981, was impaired as a result in a hearing held on Microsoft Teams between 18 and 26 October.

“By reason of the matters set out… your fitness to practise is impaired because of your misconduct,” Tribunal Chair Duncan Toole concluded.

Yesterday, a hearing was held to decide what sanction, if any, he should face.

The tribunal decided to impose a seven-month period of suspension on his registration.

Dr Vincent will have a 28-day period in which he can appeal the decision if he wishes, but the tribunal decided that his suspension should also cover this period.