Regulating doctors, ensuring good medical practice

GMC signposts doctors through research maze

Press Release

13 Apr 2010

New guidance from the General Medical Council (GMC) will help to guide all doctors involved in research.

Research is a vital area but it is often difficult to navigate. We know that researchers work in a complex regulatory environment and face challenging ethical issues every day.

Ros Levenson, Chair of the GMC’s Standards and Ethics Reference Group

The guidance, published today in two parts, Good Practice in research and Consent to research, is intended to be a useful starting point for all doctors involved in research.

It provides a framework to guide doctors’ decisions throughout all stages of a research project, from research design, recruiting participants, seeking consent and the publication and dissemination of research. 

The guidance acknowledges the complexity of research work and that it is essential for improving care for patients now and in the future. It also reminds doctors that the safety, dignity and wellbeing of participants take precedence over the development of treatments and the furthering of knowledge.

The guidance includes:

  • Advice about avoiding conflicts of interest, reminding doctors not to let their judgement be affected by financial, personal, political or other external interests
  • Consideration of children and young people’s role in research
  • Doctors’ duty to share information with patients about what is involved in research, including risks and benefits, in a way they can understand, to inform their decision about whether to take part
  • Doctors’ responsibilities to ensure that research is free from discrimination and open to all
  • Advice about specific issues in research involving patients who lack capacity
  • Advice about vulnerable adults with capacity, such as those with learning difficulties or mental illness, and a reminder that they might be more susceptible to pressure to take part in research.

The guidance also complements and signposts doctors to other areas of the GMC’s guidance.

Ros Levenson, Chair of the GMC’s Standards and Ethics Reference Group said:

“Research is a vital area but it is often difficult to navigate. We know that researchers work in a complex regulatory environment and face challenging ethical issues every day.

“The guidance takes account of recent changes to legislation and in society as well as views expressed during consultation. The contribution of the research community to the development of this guidance has been particularly helpful.

“The guidance is not intended to offer answers to all doctors’ questions, and in some cases will point them in the direction of other existing guidance, but it is intended to be a useful starting point for all doctors involved in research, whatever their role might be.”

The guidance can be accessed via the GMC’s website:

Notes to Editors:

For further information please contact the Media Relations Office on 020 7189 5454, out of hours 020 7189 5444, email press@gmc-uk.org, website www.gmc-uk.org.

The General Medical Council registers and licenses doctors to practise medicine in the UK. Our purpose is summed up in the phrase: Regulating doctors, Ensuring Good Medical Practice.

The law gives us four main functions:

  • keeping up-to-date registers of qualified doctors
  • fostering good medical practice
  • promoting high standards of medical education and training
  • dealing firmly and fairly with doctors whose fitness to practise is in doubt

Merger of PMETB with GMC

The functions of the Post Graduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB) transferred to the GMC on 1 April 2010, creating a simpler and clearer framework for the regulation of medical education and training.  All stages of medical education and training now fall under the GMC’s remit. For more information please visit www.gmc-uk.org.

Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA)

From April 2011, the adjudication of fitness to practise cases involving doctors will transfer from the GMC to a new body called the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA). OHPA is being established under the Health and Social Care Act 2008. It is being created to ensure clear separation between the investigation of fitness to practise cases and the process of determining whether a professional’s fitness to practise is impaired.

To begin with, the new body will be responsible for making decisions on fitness to practise cases brought forward by the GMC and, in time, the General Optical Council. Over time, other regulators of healthcare professionals may transfer their adjudication functions to OHPA. For more information about OHPA, please visit www.ohpa.org.uk

The GMC will remain the regulator for doctors, continuing to set the standards for professional practice and receiving and investigating allegations about their fitness to practise.