NHS doctor struck off over botched circumcision still performing operation

Key Highlights

• A series of medical blunders by Bux led to the boy, referred to as Patient A, being transferred to hospital amid fears for his life. Summarising its decision, the GMC panel said: “Patient A was a serious case involving a vulnerable child where Dr Bux adopted a cavalier approach to the procedure resulting in a hospital admission of Patient A in a potentially life threatening situation.”It said Bux’s misconduct was of “such a serious nature” that removing him from the medical register was “the only proportionate sanction to protect the public, promote and maintain public confidence in the medical profession, and to uphold proper professional standards and conduct”. Despite this finding, Bux, 55, continues to advertise his services as a “circumcision practitioner”, which is legal as there is no requirement for circumcisers to be medically trained. In 2015 Mohammad Siddiqui, a private circumciser, was struck off by the GMC over medical failures in four circumcisions in separate homes.
• He, too, continued to perform circumcisions.
• Last year he was sentenced to more than five years in prison for causing “gratuitous pain and suffering” in circumcisions conducted between 2014 and 2019. Last month, the Guardian revealed the Crown Prosecution Service was consulting on guidance for prosecutors that would categorise circumcision as potential child abuse, amid concern from judges and coroners about the lack of regulation of the procedure.
• Since 2001, circumcision has been a factor in the deaths of seven boys, including three children who bled to death. On his website, Bux offers circumcisions for “religious/cosmetic reasons” for babies up to six months old in north-west England, including Blackburn, Preston, Bolton, Burnley, Accrington and Nelson. The website says he has been performing circumcisions since 2003 and was a former senior partner at a GP practice.
• The website says he is no longer registered by the GMC but does not explain why. The tribunal hearing was told that Bux was “reckless and cavalier in his treatment of Patient A” and “risked fatal complications by carrying out the procedure in the community”. Specific mistakes upheld by the panel included: failing to consider Patient A’s congenital cardiac condition; failing to adequately inform his parents about the risks of the procedure being done in the community; failing to ensure the boy had sufficient pain relief – the cream Bux used did not “produce adequate numbness of the foreskin”; and administering excessive amounts of a liquid morphine. Bux’s lawyer told the panel it was a one-off incident and Bux had conducted thousands of circumcisions in the community without comp.