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GP leaders instruct GPs to stop written reflections in light of Bawa-Garba case

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GP leaders have declared they have no confidence in the GMC, following the recent case of Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba.

At the LMCs Conference in Liverpool today, LMC leaders also called on the BMA to advise GPs to ’disengage from written reflection in both appraisal and revalidation’ until new safeguards are put in place, with the chair of BMA Wales warning that royal colleges have been asked to submit their members’ reflections to the GMC.

They voted in favour of the motion that said it had ‘no confidence in the GMC as a regulatory body’, despite BMA leaders warning against the motion.

The GP Committee warned that it would harm the relationship with the regulator.

As part of the same motion, conference agreed to lobby the Health Select Committee to review the GMC’s conduct in the case, with proposer Dr Zoe Norris arguing that GPs cannot rely on a review a commissioned by health secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Dr Norris, chair of the BMA GP Committee’s sessional subcommittee, said: ‘GPs have lost all confidence in the ability of the GMC to be objective and to genuinely balance patient safety against the reality of being a doctor in the modern NHS.

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’When you after your 14 hour day in your eighth month of working a partner down with another sick, with your list going up and up, when you make a mistake, are you confident that the GMC will be fair objective and balanced in its investigation of you? GPs have no confidence in the GMC as our regulatory body.’

However, BMA Wales chair and GPC pensions lead Dr David Bailey, said: ‘We have to have a GMC, we have to have a regulator, the public demands it and rightly so.

’We can’t start from scratch again and actually whilst there are real problems at the top of the GMC, the people who work for it are actually by and large people who understand the problems that doctors have, have empathy, have professionalism and are trying to do a good job so we have to try and reform the GMC from within, we have to change their policy particularly in light of the Bawa-Garba case but starting from scratch is not the way to do it. The way to actually engage with the GMC is not to pass a motion of no confidence.’

Motion passed in full

THE GPC: That the GPC seeks the views of conference on the following motion from the Sessional GPs Subcommittee: That conference, following the recent case of Dr Bawa-Garba;

(i) has no confidence in the GMC as a regulatory body

(ii) directs GPC to advise GPs disengage from written reflection in both appraisal and revalidation until adequate safeguards are in place

(iii) request the Health Select Committee review the GMC’s conduct regarding this case

(iv) mandates GPC to urgently implement a system whereby GPs can make collective statements of concern regarding unsafe care.