GMC Launch Major Consultation To Improve Service

The General Medical Council has launched a major new consultation on how to improve patient protection and public confidence in doctors.

The consultation, launched today, is seeking views on:

• Imposing sanctions where doctors make serious clinical errors, even where they have successfully retrained and improved their practice, if they failed to heed concerns and take steps to protect patients sooner.

• Whether panels should require a doctor to apologise where he or she has previously failed to do so.

• Imposing more serious action in cases where doctors fail to raise concerns about a colleague's fitness to practise or take prompt action where a patient's basic care needs are not being met.

• Improved public protection in cases where a doctor has bullied colleagues and put patients at risk or discriminated against others in their professional or personal life.

Chief Executive of the General Medical Council, Niall Dickson, said: "In the vast majority of cases one-off clinical errors do not merit any action by the GMC. But if we are to maintain that trust, in the small number of serious cases where doctors fail to listen to concerns and take action sooner to protect patients, they should be held to account for their actions.

"There have been occasions when we have been prevented from taking action in serious cases because the doctor has been able to show that they have subsequently improved their practice. We believe that doctors and patients want stronger action in these serious cases.

"It is also right that patients or their families are told what went wrong and if appropriate they should be given a full apology. We believe this should be taken into account when deciding what if any sanction needs to be imposed to protect future patients and uphold the reputation of the profession."

The consultation can be found here.

(MH/JP)