GMC to lose power to appeal MPTS decisions this year

Credit: GMC

By Claudia Tanner

The General Medical Council is to lose its appeal rights over tribunal decisions this year, its chief executive has confirmed.

Charlie Massey told the parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee this afternoon that the government would finally remove the regulator's power to challenge fitness-to-practise rulings, nearly eight years after the plans were first recommended.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) operates as a statutory committee of the GMC but is fully independent in its decision-making.

At present, the GMC appeals in cases where it feels a MPTS’s sanction of a doctor has not adequately protected the public.

The move follows years of concern from the medical profession that the GMC's dual role as both prosecutor and appellant in fitness-to-practise cases creates a conflict of interest and undermines the independence of tribunal decisions.

The forthcoming legislation will also rename physician associates and anaesthesia associates as 'assistants', and give the GMC more flexibility over which fitness-to-practise investigations to pursue.