A GP who told a mother of two with cancer that she had swollen glands faces being stuck off the medical register.

Newham Recorder: Linda Geden died from cancer after being repeatedly told by her doctor that she had swollen glands.Linda Geden died from cancer after being repeatedly told by her doctor that she had swollen glands. (Image: PA Archive/Press Association Images)

Dr Inayat Inayatullah saw Linda Geden at his Barking Road medical centre in East Ham in September 2002. She told him she had a lump about the size of a marble on her neck. Dr Inayattullah advsied her to take paracetamol.

Although Ms Geden returned to the surgery in November, she was told the same thing. She left in tears after the GP shouted at her and said she was wasting his time.

Ms Geden, from Plaistow, who registered with another doctor, was diagnosed with cancer in April 2003. Despite receiving radiotherapy and chemotherapy she died in June 2006, aged 38.

Dr Inayatullah appeared before the General Medical Council in September 2006 and was subject to 13 conditions.

Three years later, in 2009, he was allowed to work unrestricted.

In 2011 an investigation was launched after Dr Inayatullah was secretly filmed telling an undercover reporter to eat mangoes after he relayed symptoms of bowel cancer. The reporter, referred to as AC, was working for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme

Now, the GP is facing a fitness to practice panel in Manchester on the basis of consultations he carried out with two ‘patients’, both of whom were undercover reporters.

The panel ruled that he should have obtained additional details about patient AC’s rectal bleeding when he told him he was suffering from stomach pain, constipation and passing blood.

The panel also said he “had an obligation to carry out a rectal examination”. Instead the GP made a diagnosis of constipation. The GP recorded in his notes that he had carried out an examination while the video footage did not show him doing so. The panel the doctor had acted dishonestly.

The panel now has to consider whether his fitness to practice impaired and what sanctions to impose. It has a range of sanctions which include suspending his registration or erase his name from the register, meaning he can no longer practice.