The most significant overhaul of the regulation of medical professionals since 1983 has been launched in a consultation on the General Medical Council Order.
An overhaul of the General Medical Council (GMC) has been announced to modernise the regulation of doctors, making the system faster, less bureaucratic and better equipped to protect both patients and NHS staff.
What is the most significant overhaul of the regulation of medical professionals since 1983 will be set out in a consultation on the General Medical Council (GMC) Order, the legislation governing the regulation of doctors.
“It is clear that the current regulatory landscape is outdated and too bureaucratic, hampering the GMC’s ability to act decisively when doctors contravene their code of conduct,” the government has said.
A trigger has been the rapid review by John Mann, Baron Mann, into antisemitism and other forms of racism in the health service, which the government commissioned in November.
“The NHS is a universal health service, which means that everyone, regardless of race, religion, or belief, should feel safe seeking its care. It is unacceptable that this is not the current reality for many patients and staff, and I will not allow it to continue,” said heath and social care secretary Wes Streeting.
“I am grateful to Lord John Mann for his rapid investigation into how we can overhaul the current system, and I look forward to setting his common-sense recommendations in motion to ensure NHS patients and staff get the protection they expect.”
Principal objectives
The principal objectives of the draft General Medical Council Order are to introduce a “modern and agile regulatory framework” for medical practitioners, physician associates and anaesthesia associates.
The GMC will be able to consult and amend its rules more efficiently as these will no longer require Privy Council approval. This should allow GMC to respond to external events more efficiently.
At the same time, GMC will be provided with more flexibility to set standards for education and training in different forms, like formal teaching, digital learning, as well as clinical settings or community-based settings.
The new framework will provide a duty on the GMC to hold a single register, rather than multiple registers as it does currently. This will be divided into parts for each profession the GMC regulates, and will make it easier for the public and patients to find and understand registration information about the GMC’s registrants.
Registration powers will be reformed so the GMC can amend requirements flexibly, which means it will adapt more quickly to workforce needs and regulatory developments.
The fitness to practise process will also be overhauled to make it less adversarial, which will strengthen public protection and improve the experience for all parties involved. This should support the work GMC has already done to eliminate bias in its fitness to practice processes.
It will also establish a framework which may be used for future reforms to the other healthcare professional regulators, enabling faster and more consistent cross-regulator outcomes.
“Patients rightly expect assurance that doctors, PAs and AAs are safe to practise and can be held to account if serious concerns are raised. These proposed reforms will allow us to respond more quickly and flexibly when patient safety is at risk,” said GMC chief executive Charlie Massey.
“They will also allow us to further improve our efficiency and effectiveness, while at the same time enabling us to help patients navigate the complaints and concerns process more easily,” he continued.
A far cry
The trade union British Medical Association (BMA) immediately said that the proposed changes are “a far cry” from what is needed to fix the regulator.
“The changes in today’s consultation are a far cry from what is needed to fix a broken regulator that is aggressively pursuing doctors and failing the public. Rather than restoring the medical profession’s confidence in the GMC or protecting the safety of the public, both will be further eroded,” said BMA council chair Tom Dolphin, saying that the BMA has been calling for complete reform of the GMC for years.
He has called the overhaul “a missed opportunity”.
One key change he has recommended is to remove the GMC’s right to appeal decisions made by the independent Medical Practitioner’s Tribunal Service (MPTS). Although this has been recommended several times since 2018, the recommended changes not only retain the right, they expand it.
“Anti-Semitism and racism are abhorrent and unacceptable in the NHS as they are in any workplace. Discrimination and abuse need tackling, but expanding and duplicating the powers of the regulator should not be used as a replacement for action by employers, where this responsibility should lie,” Dolphin continued.
The consultation on changes to the General Medical Council Order closes on 23 June.
