The doctors’ trade union says that the GMC has failed to protect patients and has a “dangerous obsession with substituting doctors” at the expense of patient safety.
Philip Banfield, the British Medical Association’s (BMA) chair has called for a new independent medical regulator saying that the General Medical Council (GMC), has failed to protect patients and doctors. He has called for the creation of a new medical regulator, solely for doctors.
Results from a survey of 1,539 doctors by the BMA in mid-June indicated that the majority have no confidence in the GMC and more than 80% of respondents support the creation of a new medical regulator.
In a speech at the BMA’s annual meeting, in Liverpool, he warned that the GMC’s approach to regulating physician associates has led to “incessant and unsafe blurring of professional boundaries that threaten the very foundations of practising medicine, what it means to be a doctor” and of what he calls a “dangerous obsession with substituting doctors” at the expense of patient safety.
Heart of its decision-making
His comments reflect the BMA’s long-standing criticism of the GMC’s treatment of doctors and, more recently, its approach to regulating physician associates in a way that fails to distinguish them from qualified doctors.
The survey of doctors shows that almost two-thirds of respondents believe the GMC is failing to keep patients safe and fulfil its primary function of protecting the public.
Doctors and their patients, he said, need a regulator that, “protects patients, treats doctors fairly”, and “puts them at the heart of its decision-making”.
The new medical regulator should have a clear statutory duty to protect the public, rather than this simply being an overarching objective. It should regulate doctors only, providing the public with a clear distinction between uniquely qualified doctors and non-doctor roles. It has to enforce new statutory protections of medical practitioner titles, to ensure the public is not confused by perplexing NHS job titles that blur the lines between doctors and non-doctors.
Banfield said that it is time for, “an independent regulator that once again commands the confidence of the profession”.
