The General Medical Council

The GMC needs little introduction except to say that one of its functions is to regulate doctors. It is governed by the Medical Act and should be guided in its regulatory functions by Statutory Provisions and Instruments.

What it should not do is act outside those provisions or act in any way on the margins of the law in order to achieve a pre-determined desired outcome. The way in which the GMC previously acted outside the provisions of the law are documented on GMC Injustice website.

A breakthrough concerning the actual way in which the GMC had conducted itself in the 1980s and 1990s was forthcoming through its own solicitors Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP in June 2008. A senior partner at the firm with responsibility for representing the GMC began to make witness statements and file them in the court. In these witness statements he made admissions about the GMC, its PCC and certain of its staff, which enabled Dr Colman’s counsel Mr Edward Fitzgerald QC to challenge the GMC over their procedural unfairness and injustice. Dr Hickey also joined in. The cases of Colman and Hickey have continued through the courts and as a result the GMC began to change the way in which it conducted itself with regard to medical regulation.

Very recently the GMC has stated through its own counsel that it is now doing regulation properly and within the law.

If any doctor doubts that then they should take that up with their own defence body and the GMC. It is the defence bodies that doctors must individually and collectively turn to with their concerns.

More later.