Column
News from nowhere
Doors to the corridors of power are usually shut tight, but from time to time one slips open long enough for us to see the activity within. The General Medical Council, medicine’s regulatory body, is having to deal with allegations of racism in its dealings with doctors, and its corridors have become exceptionally draughty.
The issue of racism arose after the GMC had to consider the behaviour of two doctors who exposed racist selection procedures for hospital jobs, but rapidly spread to the apparent excess of complaints against black doctors.
Senior staff at the GMC seemed receptive to concerns about possible racism within the GMC itself, a racial equality group was established with new elected GMC members in the majority plus an ethnic minority lay member in the chair, and an eminent researcher, Isobel Allen, was commissioned to review the GMC’s inner workings.
Isobel Allen’s report will reach the GMC council in May, and a summary - but not the report itself - will be made public. Its contents are known to senior GMC officers, who have seized on the fact that Allen was unable to show that discrimination against black doctors takes place within the GMC.
This is hardly surprising, given the way in which the GMC works. Complaints against doctors are summarised by GMC officers (with some leeway for discretion, no doubt) and then ‘screened’ by doctors on the GMC, who also have some opportunity to exercise discretion about further processing of complaints.
By tracking all complaints made within one year, Isobel Allen demonstrated that nearly 70 per cent of all complaints were ‘screened’ by one doctor, a very experienced GP and long-standing GMC member. She also showed that the proportion of complaints against ethnic minority doctors, who are a quarter of the profession, stood at 29 per cent initially but rose at each successive step in the GMC’s complaints process.
The final stages of the complaints proceedings appear to be fair, perhaps because they are conducted by committees with some element of openness in their operation. The way in which the GMC keeps its records did not allow a comparison of the seriousness of complaints against white and non-white doctors, but there is a feeling that white doctors get ‘let off’ more easily.
Sensitive to criticisms of racism, GMC officers are already taking to heart Allen’s recommendations about transparency in handling complaints, introducing ethnic monitoring and training staff working in areas where discretion matters. We shall see if this has any impact on the handling of complaints themselves.
