There has been a decrease in the number of fitness to practise investigations by the General Medical Council (GMC) relating to General Practitioners (GPs).
Pulse reported that between 2019 and 2021, GP fitness to practise investigations fell by almost half (45%), from 476 to 261, and the total number of investigations carried out by the GMC against all doctors have also decreased.
| Total number of investigations | Total number of GP investigations | Percentage of total that are against GPs | |
| 2019 | 1,549 | 476 | 31% |
| 2020 | 1,119 | 299 | 27% |
| 2021 | 1,007 | 261 | 26% |
Anthony Omo, GMC General Counsel and Director of Fitness to Practice, told Pulse the GMC has ‘worked hard’ to streamline its FTP process.
He added:
“Although we have reduced the number of doctors that we investigate, we are limited in our progress by the outdated legislation, which needs updating and which forces us to bring too many doctors into our fitness to practise investigations. Regulatory reform would enable us to be fairer and more focused on the cases that matter for patient protection and public confidence.
“We remain ready to progress the regulatory reforms as soon as the Department of Health and Social Care lays the necessary legislation to do.”
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