What is the point of the GMC?

Editor Jaimie Kaffash reflects on the role of the GMC in light of Dr Sarah Benn’s suspension for taking part in climate change protests

I suspect the majority of readers won’t get past the headline. But, in this case, it is not a rhetorical question.

I’m asking the question in the wake of the Dr Sarah Benn case. In reality, the ruling was a token one. The GP, who this week faced a five-month suspension from the GP register for her role in climate change protests, had already retired. The MPTS ruling had no material impact. But it says a lot about what the GMC is supposed to be. 

If you don’t know the facts of the case, Dr Benn was jailed for breaching court orders. She had been involved with peaceful protests against oil companies, but had breached a court injunction preventing her from entering areas around the companies’ premises.

The GMC says that there is nothing in its guidance to stop doctors from expressing personal opinions, lobbying governments or protesting. However, it adds, ‘patients and the public rightly have a high degree of trust in doctors and that trust can be eroded if doctors repeatedly fail to comply with the law’. It is not the GMC’s role to consider their motivations or to ‘determine UK law’.

I don’t want this to become an existential debate around civil disobedience, or even climate change. People will have different views around the right to break the law around protesting (and, as a politics graduate myself, I have served my time when it comes to listening to this debate). And – although personally I have strong feelings around climate change and what needs to be done – again, that isn’t the point of this case.

Because I just don’t understand what the GMC aims to do. It used to be clear on their logo – ‘Regulating doctors, ensuring good medical practice’. Now that seems to have disappeared. In fact pinning down their remit (from a search on their website) is really hard, which maybe is telling.

After an extensive search, this is what I could find: ‘We work with doctors, patients, and other stakeholders to support good, safe patient care. We set the standards doctors and those who train them need to meet, and help them achieve them.’

A further root around its website suggests that it is supposed to uphold standards, and investigate when there is a chance that ‘patient safety, or the public’s confidence in doctors, is at risk’. In their view, Dr Benn’s criminal conviction contravened this final point.

But in the case of Dr Benn, even the most SUV-driving, patio-heater-using, Jeremy-Clarkson-loving climate change denier wouldn’t lose ‘confidence’ in the profession if she is allowed to practise. They might disagree with her, sure, but as the GMC itself says, doctors are allowed to hold controversial opinions.

And her behaviour does not suggest that patients need protecting. As Dr Benn argued herself, she is taking the action because she feels it is in the best interests of patients, and the science backs this up. 

The GMC’s work is complex. It has an ambiguous purpose and, as a result, it needs expert judgement and understanding of the nuances of every case.

But pursuing this case to tribunal is a cowardly decision, and displays a failure to show rational judgement. As the GMC says, it is not responsible for making UK law. But it seems slightly contradictory to me that it feels the need to rigidly follow UK law. It is probably true that in the vast majority of cases public trust would be affected by a convicted criminal coming straight back to medical practice. But each case should be taken on its own individual merits.

I’m not asking the GMC to start campaigning on climate change, or even to uphold the right of people to take part in civil disobedience. I’m simply asking it to fulfil its stated purposes, without piling more unnecessary anguish on doctors.

Jaimie Kaffash is editor of Pulse. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @jkaffash or email him at editor@pulsetoday.co.uk