response from GMC about MPTS hearings July 2019

23 July 2019

Anna Rowland (020 7189 5077) (anna.rowland@gmc-uk.org)To:you Details

Dear Professor MacFie,

In view of my role as Assistant Director for Fitness to Practise Policy, I have been asked to respond to the concerns you’ve raised about our publication and disclosure policy in your email to Anthony Omo dated 25 June 2019 and subsequent letter of 01 July 2019.

I hope the information I have set out below will provide you with the information you need to understand the rationale for our approach and policy.

Our approach to publication on the MPTS website

In carrying out our statutory fitness to practise function we have to maintain a balance between the public interest and the interests of an individual doctor. Our fitness to practise work sometimes involves taking action to protect patients or public confidence in the profession and which may not be in the individual doctor’s interest. However, in carrying out this role we try to do so proportionately in relation to the individual doctor and, in that respect, patients and their friends and family sometimes feel we are not acting in their interests.

The Medical Act governs our work and provides that, apart from a few exceptions, hearings about doctors must be held in public and therefore the details of the hearing and the allegations are published, as is the decision of the tribunal. Where there is no finding of impairment made or warning issued by a tribunal, the tribunal decision is not published against the doctor’s record but as you know is published on the MPTS website for 12 months. This is to ensure that there is clear and transparent information about the formal function of the MPTS in holding a public hearing. As the hearing is carried out in the public domain, there are many interested parties, and this publication ensures that there is transparency about the outcome.

Publication and disclosure is very much an area where we have to tread a difficult line between individual doctors and patients and the public and, in order to ensure we balance interests very carefully, we have taken independent external legal advice and carried out public consultation. I understand the concerns you raise, but there are different views about this within the doctor community. The fact of the hearing and the allegations the doctor faced will be accessible via internet search engines on an ongoing basis after the hearing and this is outside our control, so some doctors prefer that there is a clear record on the MPTS website that there were no adverse findings made against them to counter information about the allegations that will continue to be more widely accessible.

Declaring fitness to practise history

To clarify, we don’t require doctors to proactively declare fitness to practise history as your email suggests but, in light of the professional duty to be honest and open and act with integrity, they are required to answer honestly if asked. I appreciate the concern about stigma and, with that in mind, our previous Chair, Sir Terence Stephenson, stated repeatedly in public that he had been investigated by the GMC on more than one occasion. It is important that senior professionals do this, given that complaints and investigations are an inevitable part of practising in any profession, not just in healthcare.

Vexatious complaints

In relation to vexatious complaints, where we hold information that indicates a complaint is vexatious, we have a power to close it without an investigation. Where we do not hold sufficient information to apply the vexatious complaints power, but have concerns about the merit of the complaint, we have other avenues open to us.

We have done a great deal of work in the last few years, to lessen the impact of these types of complaints. Our initial assessment of cases, called our provisional enquiry process, allows us to gather specific information by making swift enquiries before we make a decision about whether we need to open a full investigation. By gathering one or two pieces of information from different sources at this very early stage in our process it can help us make decisions about complaints without having to open a full investigation. Where we close a case following provisional enquiries or a full investigation because we cannot identify any matters that would call the doctor’s fitness to practise into doubt, we confirm our reasons for closing the matter in writing.

If we had evidence that a doctor had made a spurious complaint about a colleague, this would call their own fitness to practise into question and put their registration at risk. I hope this provides you with assurance that we take this issue seriously.

Finally, I hope that you find the information I have provided useful. If you have any further questions please let me know.

Kind regards,

Anna Rowland

Assistant Director Policy & Business Transformation

Fitness to Practise

Anna.rowland@gmc-uk.org

020 7189 5077

Working with doctors Working for patients

The General Medical Council helps to protect patients and improve medical education and practice in the UK by setting standards for students and doctors. We support them in achieving (and exceeding) those standards, and take action when they are not met.
_________________________________________________________________

Unless otherwise expressly agreed by the sender of this email, this communication may contain privileged or confidential information which is exempt from disclosure under UK law. This email and its attachments may not be used or disclosed except for the purpose for which it has been sent.

If you are not the addressee or have received this email in error, please do not read, print, re-transmit, store or act in reliance on it or any attachments. Instead, please email the sender and then immediately delete it.

General Medical Council

3 Hardman Street, Manchester M3 3AW

Regents Place, 350 Euston Road, London NW1 3JN

The Tun, 4 Jacksons Entry, Holyrood Road, Edinburgh EH8 8AE

4th Floor, Caspian Point 2, Caspian Way, Cardiff Bay CF10 4DQ

9th Floor, Bedford House, 16-22 Bedford Street, Belfast BT2 7FD

The GMC is a charity registered in England and Wales (1089278) and Scotland (SC037750)

Read other news articles