GP suspended pending investigation

The council says it "protects patients, guides doctors"

A Belfast doctor has been suspended for 18 months by the General Medical Council pending an investigation.

Dr Ciaran Wasson has a practice at Whiterock health centre in the west of the city.

No details have been given about the type of allegations being investigated.

However, the General Medical Council (GMC), which licences doctors to practice medicine, said there was "no suggestion that the doctor in question has done anything wrong".

Dr Wasson regrets very much the distress and inconvenience which this suspension will cause to the patients on his list

Dr Wasson's solicitors

Dr Wasson's suspension will be reviewed in six months time.

A spokesman for the Eastern Health Board said arrangements were being made to ensure there was no disruption to services for his patients.

Dr Wasson's lawyers said that on 13 November the Interim Orders Committee of the GMC had decided that Dr Wasson should be suspended from the medical register for 18 months.

In a statement, they added: "Dr Wasson regrets very much the distress and inconvenience which this suspension will cause to the patients on his list.

'Competent and caring'

"The GMC will soon sit to hear the evidence which is said to support the allegations against Dr Wasson.

"Dr Wasson will be contending at that hearing that he acted at all times as a competent and caring family doctor."

The GMC is a professional body which says its purpose is summed up in the phrase: "Protecting patients, guiding doctors".