Dr Keith Wolverson, a GP who has been in medicine for 23 years, received a letter from the General Medical Council (GMC) telling him his conduct was under investigation.
He told the Mail on Sunday he was “deeply” upset at being accused of racial discrimination over the incident and no longer had any interest in working in the profession.
The situation came about when the well respected Doctor asked a woman to lift her niqab, a face covering garment worn by some Muslim women, which he claims he did politely and was so he could communicate with her better while trying to diagnose the woman’s daughter.
He said the woman was speaking to him about her daughter, who she feared had tonsillitis, and he asked her to move the veil so he could hear her more clearly. He claims she did so with no complaint during the consultation at Royal Stoke University Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent last June. Later on her husband arrived and said he would be making a complaint.
Now the GMC have responded to one of our readers with the following:
Thank you for your email about Dr Keith Wolverson.
We are aware of the media coverage about Dr Wolverson (4328696), who is currently registered with a licence to practise and with no restrictions on his record. The full facts of the case have not been aired and we won’t be commenting on the specifics of the case referred to us by Dr Wolverson’s employer. Doctors and patients have a right to expect that we carry out investigations in an even-handed way – as the petition calls for so we will not be commenting on the specifics of the case referred to us by Dr Wolverson’s employer.
More generally around issues such as this, our guidance sets out that doctors must treat patients’ beliefs and choices of religious dress with respect. If a doctor has exhausted all possible alternative communication approaches and believes they can’t provide safe care without seeing a woman’s face, they can sensitively ask her to remove her face covering but if this causes distress, we would expect a doctor to continue with other channels of communication.
We receive about 8,000 complaints a year and we have to look into every one to see if the concern may raise a question about a doctor’s fitness to practise, but we would only refer cases to a hearing at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service if the allegations were sufficiently serious to suggest the doctor’s practice may be putting patients at risk. It’s also worth saying that employers only refer cases to us where a doctor’s behaviour raises a serious concern around future patient care. Any hearings listed at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal are visible on their website (https://www.mpts-uk.org/)
Thank you for taking the time to write to us. I hope this information is helpful.
Kind regards
Corporate Review Team
It is interesting to note that they mention that the full facts of the case have not yet been raised and that Dr. Wolverson is still free to practice as a GP. This comes as he appears to have the overwhelming support of the British Public who in their tens of thousands have signed a petition calling for this case to be thrown out.
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