The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7199 p705-712
25 May 2002

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Doctors will need licences to practise

Doctors will need to have licences to practise medicine, renewable every five years, under plans for reforming the General Medical Council, published this week by the GMC and the Department of Health. The plans would also reduce the size of the GMC, while increasing its lay membership, and give it greater powers to remove doctors from the medical register.

In a foreword to the consultation document, Minister of State for Health John Hutton and president of the GMC Graeme Catto say: "The changes to the GMC and the way it works must be seen in the context of the roles of new National Health Service organisations, such as the National Clinical Assessment Authority and the National Patient Safety Agency, and others with a responsibility for assuring the quality and safety of patient care."

Under the plans, all practising doctors will have to submit evidence to the GMC, collected over a five-year period, showing that their work is up-to-date and of a high standard. Those failing to meet the standards, or who do not take part in the scheme, will be barred from treating patients or prescribing within the NHS and the armed forces. The first revalidation is expected to start in 2005 with guidance on how doctors can demonstrate fitness to practise being issued early next year.

The GMC's council would be reduced from the current 104 to 35 members, of whom 40 per cent would be lay members (ie, not medical practitioners), up from 25 per cent at present. Only licensed doctors would be eligible to stand for election to the GMC. The main council would have a number of subcommittees covering registration, investigation of complaints and fitness to practise. These committees would include people who were not members of the main council (and council members would not be able to sit on fitness to practise committees). The GMC would remain accountable to Parliament and fall under the remit of the Council for the Regulation of Health Care Professionals.

The fitness to practise committees would be able to make orders removing doctors from the register, suspending them for up to 12 months, or imposing conditions on their practise.

In cases where fitness to practise was affected by health, suspensions could be put in place indefinitely. Those removed from the register would not be readmitted for at least five years and would only be allowed two attempts at restoration. The GMC would also be able to make interim orders where it felt patient safety might be at risk. Such orders could take place with immediate effect. The way in which the GMC handles fitness to practise cases is to be overhauled to make them, quicker, fairer and more effective.

Other changes proposed would mean that the GMC no longer had to publish a printed version of the medical register. Instead it would maintain a list of doctors, with details of their eligibility to practise, which could be published electronically.

The proposals have been drawn up in consultation between the GMC and the Department of Health. Details have been published on the Department's website and include a draft Order drawn up under Section 60 of the Health Act 1999 which is intended to implement the changes. Consultation on the Order runs until 6 September.