Close the General Medical Council – It’s a Danger to Health
Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc FRSA
The Government is puzzled about why the number of doctors is falling faster than for decades. They’ve come up with all sorts of strange ideas. But I can tell them exactly why Britain is losing doctors.
It’s the General Medical Council’s fault.
The GMC is a truly terrible and pointless organisation. It is supposed to protect patients from bad doctors. But I believe that the GMC has killed more patients than 100 Dr Shipmans.
How have they done it?
Simple, a few years ago the GMC introduced something called `revalidation’ and `licensing’.
It’s a complicated scheme which enables the GMC to make a lot more money out of doctors by charging pointless fees.
But there are two problems.
First, the GMC scheme has turned doctors into form fillers. I don’t believe the new revalidation rules do anything to protect patients but they force doctors to spend weeks completing stupid paperwork. Doctors want to see patients not fill forms. They are unhappy and they are retiring in thousands.
Second, once a doctor has retired he cannot work part time. A GP cannot help out his old practice during busy periods or sickness. Hospital specialists with years of experience are lost forever. The GMC has pushed doctors into giving up medicine completely the minute they retire.
So, if the Government is looking for someone to blame for the shortage of doctors it should look no further than the General Medical Council.
Closing down the GMC, and sacking the vast overpaid staff, would save thousands of lives and improve the NHS enormously.
Copyright Vernon Coleman May 2019
There’s a chapter about the GMC in my book Why and How Doctors Kill More People than Cancer. It’s now available as a paperback.
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