No, a doctor didn’t get struck off for asking a woman to remove her niqab
Dr Keith Wolverson’s case has triggered outrage in the rightwing media. But the tribunal that banned him from practising paints a different picture
Over the last week, media outlets including the Telegraph, LBC, GB News and Talk TV have run stories about Dr Keith Wolverson, a GP who was barred from practising medicine earlier this month.
“Doctor Banned After Asking Muslim Woman To Remove Veil,” reads one headline. “Doctor suspended for asking Muslim woman to remove veil is struck off,” states another.
Wolverson’s story has become a lightning rod for anti-Muslim sentiment on both traditional and social media, with commenters claiming the case is evidence of a demise of British values and disproportionate control held by Muslims in Britain. One remark highlighted by Talk TV itself reads: “It’s time we ban burqa not doctors.”
This is not the first time Wolverson has been in the news. The initial investigation into his conduct in 2018 triggered a 60,000-strong petition calling for him to keep his job, which was shared online by prominent figures, including Richard Dawkins.
It began when Wolverson asked a Muslim woman to take off her niqab during a medical consultation for her child. He says this was so he could understand her better.
But despite the implications of the headlines in recent days, this is not the reason he was struck off.
The decision of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) from 10 April shows that Wolverson was removed from the register because he failed to engage with the regulatory system necessary for his return to work after he was suspended for several counts of misconduct and dishonesty.
What happened?
According to MPTS documents, Wolverson was first investigated in 2018 due to a complaint made by a woman, identified as Mrs Q.
Mrs Q said that she took her daughter for an appointment with Wolverson at a walk-in centre in Royal Stoke University Hospital and was repeatedly asked by the doctor to remove her niqab — a request she initially refused, citing religious reasons, but eventually agreed to.
Wolverson claimed during a tribunal that he and Mrs Q had “engaged in a discussion” about removing her niqab, following which she had done so voluntarily, and that he had not made repeated requests and had not heard her say that she did not want to take it off. He did, however, admit in evidence that she had been reluctant to do so and had been anxious and upset as a result of his request.
Mrs Q and her husband returned to the hospital the same day to make a complaint about the incident, but Wolverson refused to speak with the couple, saying the consultation was over. The matter was escalated to the General Medical Council (GMC), which, following an investigation, turned the case over to the MPTS in 2022.
Following Mrs Q’s complaint, Wolverson wrote in an email to colleagues that he had asked Mrs Q to remove the face veil as she “spoke poor English”. Later, he told the MPTS that he had struggled to understand her “thick Stoke accent”, but the tribunal found that Mrs Q spoke “good English with a mild regional accent”. During the tribunal procedure, Mrs Q gave oral evidence while wearing her niqab and no MPT participants reported struggling to understand her.
The tribunal
The MPTS adjudicates on complaints made against doctors and makes decisions on their fitness to practise and any sanctions that should be applied.
In 2022, the MPTS considered several allegations of misconduct against Wolverson alongside Mrs Q’s own allegations.
In the course of the GMC investigation, Wolverson was found to have made disparaging comments about a number of other patients’ English skills in their medical notes.
“BEING HERE FOR 5 YEARS AND NOT BEING ABLE TO EXPLAIN WHAT IS WRONG WITH Her Daughter, IS, FRANKLY, NOT GOOD ENOUGH,” he wrote in one child’s file about her mother. “‘I do not understand a word these parents are saying!!! They need to learn better English!!” he wrote in another.
The tribunal found that the comments “were disrespectful, served no clinical purpose and would undermine a patient’s trust in him and the wider profession, if they were to read them”.
Related content
During the tribunal, Wolverson agreed that the written notes were “regrettable” and that he would not make them again. However, he did not accept that they were disrespectful towards the patients and added they were a way of him “appropriately letting off steam”. He also said that while patients might find the comments “upsetting”, they might motivate them to learn English and that the patients may not even understand the notes.
The tribunal also found that Wolverson engaged in dishonest behaviour by claiming that Mrs Q spoke poor English when that was not the case, although he denied this.
The tribunal reached a decision to suspend Wolverson’s medical practice for nine months, beginning in November 2022, due to the identified misconduct and dishonesty.
But Wolverson went on to breach his suspension by undertaking locum shifts almost immediately, leading to a further suspension of 12 months.
Following his second suspension, Wolverson ceased to engage with the GMC and the MPTS, the service said in its determination of the case. He did not attend further meetings, provide evidence or answer emails or post. Two years after his disengagement, the MPTS made the decision in April 2026 to erase Wolverson from the medical register as he had not engaged with the regulatory procedures, had not practised medicine in more than three years and had taken no steps to return to work.
The headlines
The reason for Wolverson’s removal from the register is not made clear in recent headlines. While the Telegraph, LBC and GB News do present his disengagement with the regulatory procedures as the reason he was ultimately struck off, they do not make it clear that Mrs Q — referred to by GB News as “the Muslim” — had been found to speak good English and that Wolverson’s denial of this fact was a key reason that he was found to be “dishonest”.
TalkTV presenter Ian Collins described Wolverson’s explanation of Mrs Q’s “poor English” as “all reasonable stuff”, making no mention of the proven allegations of misconduct or dishonesty, while his guest, Rafe Heydel-Mankoo, called for a burqa ban and suggested that Wolverson had needed to examine Mrs Q’s lips, despite her daughter having been the patient.
The impact
The media response to the case has sparked concern among Muslim advocacy groups.
“The decision of some outlets to frame the case as a cultural or religious issue risks placing unwarranted scrutiny on Muslim patients, particularly women who wear the niqab, and downplays the seriousness of the actions of Dr Wolverson,” said a spokesperson for the British Islamic Medical Association. “This case should not be reduced to a debate about Muslim women’s clothing. False narratives can erode trust in healthcare services, discourage patient engagement, and contribute to wider health inequalities.”
Previous research has shown how prejudice towards female Muslim patients by healthcare staff can contribute to poorer health outcomes, including reluctance by patients to engage in health screenings. South Asian women in Britain are more likely to experience long-term health problems, including heart disease, stroke, hypertension and diabetes and more likely to die due to heart disease.
Wolverson’s response
Wolverson could not be reached for comment. However, since the case first gained media attention, he has given several statements.
“I feel a major injustice has taken place,” he told the Mail on Sunday in 2019. “This is why you are waiting so long to see your GP and doctors are leaving in droves. This country will have no doctors left if we continue to treat them in this manner. I’m deeply upset.”
He had also told the Sun that he was not racist.
“It’s outrageous. I was just trying to do my job properly,” he said. “I’m not racist. This is nothing to do with race, religion or skin colour – it’s about clarity of communication.”
