A consultant at Lister Hospital in Stevenage has been suspended after being caught on camera stealing a coat belonging to a patient's mother.

Consultant anaesthetist Rajashree Chavan is seen touching and moving a coat hanging in a hallway at Lister on CCTV footage from January 25, 2021, the Medical Practitioners' Tribunal Service has heard.

Returning later, the doctor is seen leaving the area with a bag containing the coat, hidden under another item.

The tribunal did not accept Dr Chavan's initial explanation that she had borrowed the coat to wear whilst she moved between buildings during her shift. "The CCTV footage clearly showed Dr Chavan wearing her own coat when she took Ms A's coat, which she then placed in a bag," it noted.

When questioned by police a month later, Dr Chavan admitted taking the coat, which was found in her car at her home, and she accepted a Community Resolution Order.

The tribunal heard the stolen coat had "sentimental value" to Ms A, who said: "You’re supposed to be able to trust the doctors and I felt sick when I found out it had been a doctor who had stolen my coat.

"It makes you question a doctor’s character and I am not sure that I could trust a doctor to look after me or my son."

Representing Dr Chavan, Simon Cridland said she had been under "a huge amount of personal and professional stress" at the time.

He said the incident took place on the day of her mother's funeral, which she was unable to attend due to the pandemic.

Mr Cridland also said Covid death rates were at their highest and Dr Chavan was having "frequent end-of-life conversations with patients’ families" in intensive care, which "contributed to a significant amount of physical and mental fatigue, stress and burnout".

The tribunal determined that Dr Chavan "took the coat as a deliberate, dishonest act with no intention to return it".

It found Dr Chavan had "betrayed her professional position of trust" and said her actions amounted to serious misconduct, suspending her for three months "to send a signal to Dr Chavan, the profession and the wider public that her actions were unacceptable and should never be repeated".