THE NHS REFORM BLOG

Pulse recently featured a piece that details the objections by the medical profession to the GMC's attempts to regulate the private lives of doctors. 

Firstly, given our experience, it is important for the GMC to regulate all aspects of a doctor's private life. Indeed, it was with this intention that the GMC decided to change the terms " Serious Professional Misconduct" to "Misconduct". The case law supports this. Collins J in R v GMC Ex Parte Pal was very clear - anything that goes to the integrity of the doctor must be investigated through Stream 1. The medical profession kept quiet during this case law and now it appears to be haunting them. The bottomline is this - it is too late for the GMC to go back unless it wishes to change "misconduct" to "SPM" again. According to their internal discussions, "misconduct" was invented to give the GMC powers to assess "all types of conduct". The result of course is this - any conduct deemed to "go to the integrity of the doctor" [ and remind yourselves that this is a subjective assessment] can amount to misconduct and can be investigated by the General Medical Council. 

Secondly, for all those who wish to contribute to the GMC's consultation, visit this website . The case law is now set, the directives are all there. It is too late for any doctor to challenge the GMC's ability to infiltrate their private lives.