Optometrists Soab Bhuta and Aziza Patel admit to misleading scheme

Two optometrists who misled a diabetic retinopathy screening scheme have appeared before a General Optical Council fitness to practise committee.

Soab Bhuta was alleged to have allowed his sister-in-law Aziza Patel to take and grade images under the diabetic retinopathy screening scheme in south Manchester knowing that she was not an accredited performer.

The Council heard that Patel knowingly misled the scheme by taking and grading the images and used, with his consent, Bhuta’s login for the scheme’s screening database with the intention of misleading it into thinking that Bhuta had taken the images.

The screening in question was alleged to have taken place between January and May 2012, when some 60 patients were seen. Bhuta was paid a fee for each patient screened and although no evidence of harm to patients screened by Patel was presented to the committee, it said the registrant exposed patients to avoidable risk.