New deal

This event coincides neatly with radical moves in the medical profession to reform the GMC's disciplinary process. As I have previously indicated, we need to keep a sharp eye on such developments in that professional disciplinary tribunals in the post-Shipman era are coming under increasing public scrutiny. The most important development is without doubt the Government's proposed establishment of a new body to oversee the GMC and similar bodies operating in the health sector. Various aspects of the disciplinary process are now being questioned. According to medico-legal expert Bertie Leigh, a partner in Hempsons, a solicitors' firm which specialises in defending doctors (and which formerly undertook GOC prosecutions), the GMC is stricter than a standard court - a charge which some might feel also applies to the GOC's disciplinary committee. In a recent letter to the GMC, featured in Doctor (September 29), he went straight for the jugular. Its decision taking, he alleged, was erratic, rendering it difficult for solicitors to advise doctor clients. 'In order to defend its own position it seems to feel obliged to bend over backwards to be seen to be beastly to doctors.' Bearing in mind the recent introduction of the Human Rights Act, to which I recently referred (Nemo, October 20), his suggestion that the GMC's composite role as judge, jury and prosecutor be terminated seems extremely timely. He believes, however, that the GMC should continue as a prosecuting authority but that cases against doctors be heard by an independent body comprising two medicos from the same speciality with a High Court judge as chairman. The latter views have already been supported by both the GMC president and the British Medical Association chairman, but how, one wonders, would leaders of allied professions react to such a suggestion?