Doctor struck off for helping to arrange FGM

A doctor with a practice in Birmingham has been struck off the medical register after he was found by a medical malpractice tribunal to have told an undercover reporter how to arrange female genital mutilation abroad for her two nieces.

FGM involves the partial removal of a girl's genitals for non-medical reasons and is illegal in this country. It is also illegal to carry it out on a British citizen abroad.

The tribunal said Dr Ali Mao-Aweys' misconduct was "at the extreme end of the spectrum of serious misconduct and was damaging to the public's trust and confidence in the profession."

It said he will be struck off the medical register with immediate effect. He has 28 days to appeal the decision.

Health and community workers in the Midlands say new rules starting today requiring all NHS hospitals to report cases of female genital mutilation to the government do not go far enough.

The Department of Health says it wants hospitals to report cases to get a better picture about the number of women in the UK who have been subjected to the practice.

Ministers from across government have pushed through tough new measures to stop the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), making it mandatory for all NHS hospitals to provide information on patients who have undergone FGM.

From April this year NHS hospitals will be required to record:

1 If a patient has had FGM

2 If there is a family history of FGM

3 If an FGM-related procedure has been carried out on a women - (deinfibulation)

By September this year, all acute hospitals must report this data centrally to the Department of Health on a monthly basis.

"In order to combat it and ensure we can care properly for the girls and women who have undergone mutilation we need to build a more accurate nationwide picture of the challenge. This is the first step towards doing that," said Public Health Minister, Jane Ellison.

Read: Government to announce plans to tackle female genital mutilation in Britain