A GP beat himself in the chest and threw himself against a door while shouting “stop hitting me” in an attempt to frame a patient for assault, a tribunal has heard. 

Gurkirit Kalkat, a GP at Thames View Health Centre in Barking, engineered the incident as part of his attempts to have a patient with drug issues removed from his patient list. 

Other attempts to rid himself of the patient included lying that he (Dr Kalkat) was dying of cancer and offering the patient £15,000 to cease to be registered with the surgery, a tribunal heard. 

The 58-year-old GP has now been suspended for one year by The Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal Service (MPTS) after he was found guilty of serious professional misconduct. 

The disciplinary tribunal heard that on February 3, 2020, the patient was invited to see Dr Kalkat alongside another employee at the health centre named only as Ms C. 

The patient said: “Dr Kalkat gave me four weeks of prescriptions, then he stood up and walked towards the door. He then threw himself against the door slightly and put his fist on his chest and said ‘stop hitting me, ow, this is violence, you’re attacking me’. 

“I was still sat in the chair and started to laugh a little bit because I honestly thought he was joking at first, but when he said to Ms C ‘You just seen him hit me didn’t you?’. And she replied ‘Yes, I did’. 

“I was still sat in the same chair. He said me ‘Now you have used violence you have to leave my surgery’. I replied to him  ‘What are you doing? Are you being serious or is this sick joke?' He again replied ‘no’.” 

The patient said he then told Dr Kalkat: “I have done nothing wrong and now I have worked out what you’re doing. This is how you’re trying to remove me from your books, because you have been lying about dying of blood cancer and trying to bribe me with money to change surgery as you and another doctor’s surgery are joining together.” 

Dr Kalkat then pressed a panic button causing two police officers to arrive at Thames View Medical Centre to handcuff and remove the patient. 

After the patient was arrested he strongly denied having assaulted the GP and no criminal prosecution was taken against him.  

However, the patient was placed on a ‘violent patient’ list and later found it difficult to get appointments. 

The tribunal also heard that the patient had taken a secret recording in which Dr Kalkat lied that he had blood cancer.  

Dr Kalkat said he was going to America for treatment. He said: “If it works, it might give me another five or six months. If it doesn’t work then I might not be about summer.” 

Dr Kalkat denied any wrongdoing but the tribunal found the allegations that he lied about cancer, offered £15,000 and lied that the patient had assaulted him to be true. 

Tribunal chairman Stephen Killen said: “Dr Kalkat had been taking increasingly inappropriate / desperate / dishonest actions with a view to Patient A registering elsewhere. By the time of February 3, 2020, Dr Kalkat was aware that Patient A was not convinced by his assertions of illness and Patient A had not registered with another practice.” 

In mitigation, it was submitted that Dr Kalkat made a “significant error of judgement” relating to one patient with particularly complex needs and had an unblemished 30 year career prior to this. 

The tribunal concluded that Dr Kalkat should be suspended for one year.