Hospital tries to find 'fake doctor'

Judy Jones,Health Services Correspondent
Sunday 09 August 1992 23:02 BST
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GUY'S HOSPITAL is to begin a review of recruitment practices after a senior manager was accused of having a prison record for impersonating a doctor and carrying out 26 operations.

Administrators were yesterday trying to trace Roy Grimshaw, Guy's pounds 40,000-a-year clinical services manager, who allegedly posed as a gynaecologist for six months at Lytham St Anne's, Lancashire.

According to the News of the World yesterday, Mr Grimshaw conned his way into two senior management posts by adopting his middle name, Wilfred, using a bogus curriculum vitae and buying a doctorate from an American university.

He embarked on a career in NHS management, the newspaper said, three years after his release from Wakefield Prison, where he served two years of a six-year sentence for forgery, perjury and assaults on women arising from the impersonation.

He worked in management jobs at Chase Farm Hospital, in Enfield, north London, before taking up his post on 15 July this year at Guy's, with responsibility for 300 staff, including nurses, anaesthetists and radiologists.

Mr Grimshaw was quoted in the News of the World as promising to resign and thinking about leaving the country to 'make a clean start'.

The hospital said yesterday it had tried repeatedly to contact Mr Grimshaw after it became aware of the allegations. Ann Whitmore, Guy's duty administrator, pointed out that his job was not clinical, and did not require medical or scientific knowledge.

She could not say what attempts had been made to check his references, and added that the hospital had not yet considered involving the police. Mr Grimshaw had been appointed clinical services manager after a series of tests and interviews.

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