Vincent Argent, the former medical director of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said that doctors had a “lax” approach to completing paperwork so that women can have abortions.
He said: “We used to pre-sign forms, we used to sign forms after the operation, we used to ask the anaesthetist to do it…it was bad practice.”
He said the practice was common at an NHS hospital where he used to work and a colleague “used to presign a batch of forms before she went away so there was one signature already on the form, without the patient’s name. Then when I saw the patient, or someone else saw the patient, they could add in their signature”.
His comments were made as Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, warned that abortion providers will have their licences withdrawn if they were found to be breaking the law. The statement was made as the health watchdog made a series of unannounced inspections to all abortion providers.
The Daily Telegraph understands that hundreds of private and NHS clinics have been inspected by the Care Quality Commission and more than 50 were “not in compliance” with the law or regulations.
Last month, this newspaper disclosed that doctors were prepared to sign off abortions if women were unhappy with the gender of the foetus.
In the unannounced raids by officials from the CQC, it is understood that piles of “pre-signed” forms were discovered – forms signed by doctors who had not met the women who wanted an abortion.
Under the 1967 Abortion Act, any abortion must be approved by two doctors.
In a statement to Parliament, Mr Lansley said that “the pre-signing of these forms is potentially a serious criminal offence”. He added that any evidence that doctors were breaking the law would be reported to the police.
“What is not acceptable is to sign the certificates without knowing who is the woman to which it relates,” said Mr Lansley. “There have recently been a number of serious allegations involving potential breaches of the Abortion Act 1967. I will consider withdrawing an independent abortion provider’s approval to conduct abortions if the requirements of the Act are not being met,” he said.
Three police forces are investigating abortion clinics – Greater Manchester, West Midlands, and the Metropolitan Police. The General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council are also carrying out investigations.
A spokesman for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) said: “Allegations about BPAS made in The Daily Telegraph are not true.”
The abortion clinic raids were heavily criticised by the industry. Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the BPAS, claimed that CQC inspectors had been diverted from their duty of inspecting standards at institutions such as hospitals.
“They have stopped doing their other work to do this – and at some of our clinics they have spent up to five hours going through paper work, when as far as I am aware there is nothing different about the way that doctors are practising now than the way that they were practising five years ago or 10 years ago,” she said.
The CQC denied its work had been adversely affected.
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