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News: GMC Council - lack of private sector or military experience?

25 March 2009

How will revalidation work for those doctors outside of a managed care system

The newly reconstituted GMC council (GMCtoday January/February 2009) contains a group of highly talented individuals, but appears to have no-one with experience of healthcare in the private sector or the military. Many doctors in the private sector feel particularly concerned, as the GMC has at times propounded the view that those doctors working outwith the NHS may require something more than the standard ‘light touch’ regulation envisaged for the NHS, although all the recent high-profile disasters (Shipman, Kerr, Haslam, Alder Hey and Bristol) took place within the NHS. Most of us in the independent sector have struggled over many years to get any answers from the GMC as to how revalidation will work for those doctors outside of a managed care system. Given the composition of the new GMC Council, it is now easier to see why.
Dr G E P Vincenti

The GMC writes:

We are committed to ensuring that revalidation is fit for purpose for all doctors whether they practise in the NHS or elsewhere. This is one of the reasons why Independent Healthcare Advisory Services are among those organisations represented on the recently established UK Revalidation Programme Board. We will also be working closely with the armed forces and other employers of doctors from outside the NHS as we develop our plans. Appointments to the GMC Council were made by the Independent Appointments Commission and are reflective of the GMC's key interests – doctors, patients and the public, medical educators and employers – as well as all parts of the United Kingdom.