Trainee GP Dr Luke Ong will not face further court action over Home Office attempts to deport him, it was reported this afternoon.

Dr Ong, based in Manchester, faced deportation after missing a visa renewal application by less than three weeks last year.

He won a court appeal – but then faced a Home Office legal challenge to the decision.

More than 300,000 have signed an on-line petition backing him and signatures continued to flood in tonight after the news broke.

The decision came as the government sought to show a softer face over its handling of immigration – amid concern that people of the “Windrush deportation” were facing threats of deportation for failing to regularise their right of residence.

The Home Office said it was now reconsidering the doctor’s application for “indefinite leave to remain.”

British Medical Association chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: “We are pleased that the government has seen sense and backed away from trying to deport someone who has spent the last decade dedicating himself to a career in the NHS.

“The strong reaction to Dr Ong’s case from both healthcare professionals and members of the public highlighted the absurdity of a system that would seek to remove a valued doctor from the country over an administrative error.”

Dr Ong said he was now “cautiously optimistic,” the BBC reported.