DAUK co-chairs Dr Matt Kneale and Ms Helen Fernandes wrote to NHS England over the planned changes, which were due to come into effect on 17 August.

The changes would mean that when a user leaves an NHS organisation to join another, they would only take their email address while their data, permissions and access would be archived with the former organisation.

Dr Kneale and Ms Fernandes said that while DAUK supported the proper protection of patient and confidential information, doctors must not lose access to essential work communications when moving between NHS roles or organisations.

Now Chris Parsons, NHS England deputy director collaboration services, has written to DAUK to say it is pausing the planned implementation ahead of a meeting with the association.

Implementation paused

He apologised ‘for any distress and uncertainty this has caused’, and said: “Following feedback received from the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) and individual doctors over the weekend, we have decided to pause the planned implementation of the replacement Joiner Leaver and Transfer process on NHS.net Connect.”

He said NHS England was ‘considering additional technical measures, reviewing and updating our guidance, and developing clearer information for staff undertaking learning pathways or moving between organisations as part of regular rotations’. 

Dr Kneale said: “We are grateful for this swift, receptive response. The process must work safely for patients, staff and rotating doctors.”

Read the letter from Chris Parsons, NHS England deputy director collaboration services.

DAUK committee members are all volunteers and campaign on issues facing frontline doctors in their own time. Please support our work by joining DAUK or donating to our GoFundMe.

The changes would mean that when a user leaves an NHS organisation to join another, they would only take their email address while their data, permissions and access would be archived with the former organisation.

They were due to come into effect on 17 August.

In a letter to NHS England, co-chairs Dr Matt Kneale and Ms Helen Fernandes said that while DAUK supports the proper protection of patient and confidential information, but that doctors must not lose access to essential work communications when moving between NHS roles or organisations.

Dr Kneale said: “The changes may particularly affect rotational doctors, locums and doctors with more than one NHS role.
“We have asked for implementation to be paused while key safeguards are agreed.

“These include no preventable gap in access, clear guidance and urgent support, and safe arrangements for professional records and material connected with whistleblowing.”

Read the letter.

DAUK committee members are all volunteers and campaign on issues facing frontline doctors in their own time. Please support our work by joining DAUK or donating to our GoFundMe.

Picture credit: Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash

Dr Sarah Jacques and Dr Steve Taylor will continue as DAUK’s GP co-leads.

Dr Shonelly Novintan is DAUK’s learn Not Blame lead, Dr Matt Lee is sustainability lead and Dr Victoria Zaslona is SAS lead.

DAUK would like to express our profound thanks to Dr Ellen Welch, who has taken a step back from her role as vice chair but will continue to work on DAUK’s committee, and to Dr Pusho Hossain, for her incredible work as IMG lead, which included being the driving force behind the Overseas NHS Workers’ Day.

The AGM heard a round-up of some of DAUK’s work and achievements.

General practice

It’s been an incredibly busy year for the GP committee at a time when general practice is facing unprecedented pressures.

We continue to campaign and highlight the issues facing general practice from the GP contract to employment opportunities, from funding to collective action.

The ‘Your GP, Here For You’ campaign called for a contract that puts patients at the centre of care. It has provided a positive vision for general practice through continuity of care and sustainable funding.

The GP team lobbied the government over the GP contract with a letter to the health secretary signed by hundreds of GPs and patients.

More recently, co-leads Dr Steve Taylor and Dr Sarah Jacques wrote to the health secretary calling for action to improve patient safety following coroners’ findings into the deaths of two children has made headlines in medical news media.

They have represented DAUK at pharmacy events and conferences, building relationships across healthcare while advocating for greater investment in primary care.

The GP committee is an increasingly influential voice in national discussions, providing constructive policy solutions.

Members contribute extensively to the national media and professional publications, while continuing to engage directly with politicians and policymakers.

Fit Note policy

The GMC

We continue to hold the GMC to account.

We have been a leading opponent of government proposals to retain and expand the General Medical Council’s power to appeal Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service decisions.

Working alongside thirteen other medical organisations, we wrote to health minister Karin Smyth to reconsider the proposals, arguing they undermine confidence in independent regulation.

Physician associates

We continue to highlight the roles of physician associates (PAs) and anaesthesia associates (AAs) and contribute to national discourse.

We have given strong support to Anaesthetists United’s (AU) high-profile legal challenge and expressed our ‘extreme disappointment’ at the High Court dismissing a judicial review of the GMC’s regulation of the roles.

Climate and health

The climate crisis has become an increasingly important patient safety issue.

During June’s heatwave, we surveyed healthcare professionals across the NHS, documenting unsafe temperatures affecting staff and patients.

We shared initial findings and the full report with the media, which attracted extensive national coverage.

We shared the findings with government and called for climate resilience to become a national health priority and for practical investment in NHS infrastructure to protect patients and staff during increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

We’ve collaborated with the National Emergency Briefing on its climate crisis film. We attended the original screening at Westminster, held our own online showing, and encouraged doctors to host one in their healthcare settings.

Our health, Our Planet celebrated its first birthday. It was accessed by more than 3,500 users from more than 80 countries in the first 12 months.

Medical students

Medical student members responded with force to then health secretary Wes Streeting’s comments that doctors were ‘moaning minnies’ and ‘juvenile delinquents’.
DAUK backed a complaint to the prime minister and medical students took to our website to make their voices heard.

We continue to raise the issue of bottlenecks in training and issues around placeholder roles.

Indeed, blogs by our medical students on the issue of bottlenecks in specialty training was referenced in a House of Lords briefing ahead of a debate on government plans for resident doctor training posts.

We backed the Times and Sunday Times campaign End the Graduate Rip-Off, which demands urgent reform of the student loan system in England and Wales.

Dr Taylor spoke to the Times for their campaign article highlighting the burden of student debt on medics, blogged on the issue, and was vocal on social media.

Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill

We responded to the publication of the Medical Training Bill by recognising the pressure on medical training and employment in the NHS.

Our response said that the shortage of training opportunities was  the direct result of poor workforce planning by successive governments, despite our repeated warnings. We also questioned the fairness of changing prioritisation criteria midway through the process.

A fair and effective workforce strategy must be based on long-term planning, expansion of training posts, and policies that treat doctors with consistency and respect, we said.

Palantir and patient data

Over the past year, DAUK has remained a leading clinical voice advocating for the safe and ethical use of patient data.

Led by Dr David Nicholl, we have continued our long-standing opposition to Palantir’s involvement in the Federated Data Platform with Our Data, Our NHS campaign.

Working alongside Foxglove and other campaign groups, we argue Palantir’s involvement erodes public trust and does not provide value for money.

Dr Nicholl has highlighted the issue in national newspapers and radio interviews, and hosted a briefing in Westminster for MPs.

Last month we welcomed the publication of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s report.

It raised significant concerns about the growing role of Palantir in public services and the NHS.

NHS Domestic Abuse Awareness Day

Working with the Medical Women’s Federation, we launched the first NHS Domestic Abuse Awareness Day in December.

An incredible amount of work went into it from Dr Ellen Welch and Dr Jacques with medical organisations across the country, including the BMA, getting involved.

Healthcare workers shared their powerful stories in the media, in particular the BMJ, and Dr Welch and Dr Jacques explored issues around domestic abuse on a podcast.

Not The NHS Again!

Dr Taylor, in collaboration with Keep Our NHS Public, has launched the Not The NHS Again! Podcast.

The podcast dives deep into the issues facing the NHS, healthcare workers, and patients.

Released on Spotify and YouTube every Friday, it features discussions with campaigners and healthcare experts.

Media

DAUK and our committee members continue to be seen by journalists as trusted sources and authoritative voices to comment on issues.

In the week before the AGM alone, our work surveying healthcare workers about conditions in the heatwave has been covered in the national press, healthcare publications, and national TV.

We regularly contribute to articles and broadcasts, and provide briefings and background material to journalists.

We are proactive in putting out comment on issues on our website and social media, and sending directly to journalists.

And we are quick to respond to requests, with someone being available to speak to a journalist in the majority of cases.

Our GP co-lead Dr Taylor in particular is incredibly active providing comment to general practice publications on GP-related issues.

The DAUK website a document of record and is regularly updated with news, campaigns, activities, and statements.

Social media

We have a strong social media presence which is really helped by how active our committee members are.

Dr Taylor is particularly active on X and helps to amplify our messaging and Dr Ellen Welch really pushes Instagram.

It’s important that our social media is accessed by our committee members, which gives it an authentic and authoritative voice.

Substack

Our Substack offers a vehicle for committee members to blog on issues that interest and affect them. It has also allowed us to repurpose previous blogs and share on social media, and has led to wider discussions and interviews in traditional media.

Collaborative leadership

A great strength of DAUK is our willingness to work collaboratively.

It is a theme that runs through this report, from supporting AU with financial contributions to members invited to present at conferences and events.

Our work on the Federated Data Platform, whistleblowing, the NHS Domestic Abuse Awareness Day, the climate crisis, and the GMC’s powers of appeal, are illustrations of how this collaborative approach has significantly amplified our voice and influence.

And we’ll be continuing that later this year with a joint conference with Doctors For The NHS in York in October.

GP Online and Pulse have both reported on our call for Yvette Cooper and Prime Minister Andy Burnham to make five commitments to healthcare.

Pulse highlighted our call for the new Government to ‘properly fund general practice to provide timely access, continuity and safe clinical decision making’.

Read the Pulse article in full.

Access requirements

GP Online, meanwhile, highlighted our call to ‘pause unfunded or unsafe access requirements until they have been independently safety tested and properly resourced’.

Read the GP Online article in full.

DAUK wrote to Cooper earlier this week to welcome her to the role and set out five priorities for healthcare.

Five commitments

• End the medical training bottleneck. Publish specialty by specialty training numbers, fund a credible expansion to meet medical school output and NHS need, and guarantee fair progression for doctors already serving the NHS, including SAS doctors and locally employed doctors.
• Guarantee doctor-led assessment where it matters most. Set national standards so that patients urgently referred by a GP, and patients with undifferentiated symptoms in hospital, are assessed by a doctor or have discharge approved by one. Non-doctor roles should complement doctors, never replace medical assessment.
• Rebuild the family doctor model. Properly fund general practice to provide timely access, continuity and safe clinical decision making. Pause unfunded or unsafe access requirements until they have been independently safety tested and properly resourced.
• Restore fair and independent medical regulation. Remove the GMC’s separate power to appeal decisions of its own tribunal, protect the independence of the MPTS and ensure independent oversight sits with the Professional Standards Authority. A regulator cannot credibly be investigator, prosecutor and appellant.
• Treat the climate and nature crisis as an urgent health crisis, ensuring health infrastructure is adapted to be safe in extreme heat by introducing enforceable maximum safe temperatures for healthcare facilities, delivering a public awareness campaign on the relationship between climate change and health, and supporting an accelerated program of decarbonisation and nature restoration for health.

Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK co-chair, said: “These are practical, deliverable reforms that would improve patient safety, retain skilled clinicians and demonstrate that the Government is listening to those delivering care every day.

“We would welcome an early meeting with you and your team to discuss how frontline clinicians can help shape and deliver this programme.”

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

DAUK welcomed the appointment of Cooper as an opportunity to restore trust, strengthen public services and place patient safety at the heart of NHS reform.

Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK co-chair, said: “The NHS does not lack the commitment of its staff. It lacks a coherent settlement that enables enough doctors to train and stay, protects patients when they are most vulnerable and gives clinicians confidence that policy is driven by evidence rather than short term expediency.”

Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK GP co-lead, added: “We welcome Yvette Cooper into her role as the new Health and Social Care Secretary, and look forward to the opportunity to work with her.

“She takes on the role with so much to do and many in the NHS workforce disillusioned.

Collaboration and listening

“We look forward to a new day of collaboration and listening to the people who work in the NHS and patient voices. Top down reorganisation and implementation is not the answer.”

With GPs and consultants in dispute with Government, waiting lists still at record levels and pressures across the system, it’s important that she understands the challenges ahead.

“The previous spin of success hid a lot of issues but there are solutions to be found in collaboration.”

DAUK has asked Cooper and new Prime Minister Andy Burnham to make five commitments to healthcare.

Five commitments

• End the medical training bottleneck. Publish specialty by specialty training numbers, fund a credible expansion to meet medical school output and NHS need, and guarantee fair progression for doctors already serving the NHS, including SAS doctors and locally employed doctors.
• Guarantee doctor-led assessment where it matters most. Set national standards so that patients urgently referred by a GP, and patients with undifferentiated symptoms in hospital, are assessed by a doctor or have discharge approved by one. Non-doctor roles should complement doctors, never replace medical assessment.
• Rebuild the family doctor model. Properly fund general practice to provide timely access, continuity and safe clinical decision making. Pause unfunded or unsafe access requirements until they have been independently safety tested and properly resourced.
• Restore fair and independent medical regulation. Remove the GMC’s separate power to appeal decisions of its own tribunal, protect the independence of the MPTS and ensure independent oversight sits with the Professional Standards Authority. A regulator cannot credibly be investigator, prosecutor and appellant.
• Treat the climate and nature crisis as an urgent health crisis, ensuring health infrastructure is adapted to be safe in extreme heat by introducing enforceable maximum safe temperatures for healthcare facilities, delivering a public awareness campaign on the relationship between climate change and health, and supporting an accelerated program of decarbonisation and nature restoration for health.

Dr Kneale said: “These are practical, deliverable reforms that would improve patient safety, retain skilled clinicians and demonstrate that the Government is listening to those delivering care every day.

“We would welcome an early meeting with you and your team to discuss how frontline clinicians can help shape and deliver this programme.”

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

This decision follows concerns from DAUK, the British Medical Association (BMA) and others that the original consultation presented the recommendations of the Lord Mann Review in a misleading and legally flawed way.

DAUK acted before the original consultation deadline.

On 9 June, solicitors acting for DAUK, Leigh Day, wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) seeking a one-month extension to the consultation.

Lord Mann Review

The request highlighted that Lord Mann’s Review had been published on 4 June, leaving doctors and representative organisations less than three weeks to consider its recommendations before the consultation was due to close on 23 June.

DHSC initially refused DAUK’s request for a formal extension, although it agreed that DAUK could submit further material concerning the Mann Review by 30 June.

The Government later revised its position, extending the consultation by four weeks to 21 July.

However, DAUK made clear that an extension alone could not correct the underlying problem with the consultation.

Withdrawn and reissued

On 29 June, Leigh Day wrote again on our behalf, arguing that the consultation remained misleading and calling for the sections dealing with the GMC’s appeal powers to be withdrawn and reissued.

DAUK has worked closely with other representatives of the medical profession during this process and supported the legal challenge brought by the BMA.

DAUK’s draft consultation response and legal position were informed by detailed work from our members, and we will refine this further for the new consultation.

The Government has now confirmed that it will consult again on the proposals, a decision DAUK believes is welcome and necessary. It also demonstrates the impact that coordinated legal, professional and public pressure can have.

DAUK continues to oppose the GMC retaining a separate right to appeal MPTS decisions.

Independent oversight

The Professional Standards Authority already provides independent oversight and has its own power to challenge decisions.

Giving the GMC an overlapping appeal power risks undermining the independence of the tribunal system and perpetuating the mistrust identified following the case of Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba.

Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK co-chair, said: “The government initially rejected DAUK’s request for a proper extension, before extending the consultation for everyone and now accepting that it must consult again

“That sequence shows why it was essential for doctors’ organisations to challenge this process.

“DAUK was clear that additional time alone would not cure a consultation that presented the arguments unfairly.

Collaborative work

“Through our legal team, our consultation response, and our work alongside the BMA, we helped maintain the pressure for the affected proposals to be withdrawn and reconsidered.

“This is an important result for doctors, patients and fair regulation.

“We will continue to argue that independent oversight should rest with the Professional Standards Authority, rather than allowing the GMC to act as investigator, prosecutor and appellant.”

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

Under the scheme, GPs who have paid GMC fees during a period of parental leave will receive an equivalent credit against their Medical Defense Society membership payments.

The initiative is available to new and existing Medical Defense Society members and applies retrospectively to doctors who have taken parental leave within the previous 12 months.

DAUK campaign

It follows DAUK’s campaign over the GMC’s policy of charging registration fees during parental leave.

Currently, the GMC annual retention fee is £481. It offers a 50% discount if a doctor’s total annual income falls below £37,000.

In contrast, royal colleges typically waive or reduce fees, and the BMA offers a reduced rate.

The initiative is open to GPs, GP partners and locum GPs.

Parental leave

Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK co-chair, said: “Doctors should not be penalised financially for taking their statutory entitled parental leave.

“We have consistently raised our concerns about the continued charging of GMC fees during parental leave, which we feel is unfair and may disproportionately impact women.

“We are pleased to have worked with Medical Defense Society to develop this initiative which recognises the importance of new parents being able to bond with their child, while helping to ease the financial pressures faced by GPs at a significant moment in their lives.

“This is a first step and we hope to work with more providers in the future to widen access and reduce the burden of these unnecessary fees.

“In the meantime, we continue to call for doctors on maternity, paternity, shared parental or adoption leave, to have their GMC fee reduced in proportion to the period of leave.”

Financially disadvantaged

Rohan Simon, CEO of Medical Defense Society, said: “GPs should not be financially disadvantaged for taking parental leave.

“At a time when doctors are stepping away from practice to care for their families, the continued cost of professional registration can feel both unfair and unnecessary.

“Medical Defense Society was created to offer a more modern, responsive approach to medical defence. Working with DAUK on this initiative allows us to turn a widely recognised concern into practical support for GPs.

“By giving eligible GPs a practical way to get the value of their GMC fee back, we hope to ease some of the financial pressure and send a clear message that parental leave should be supported.”

GPs can find out more about the Medical Defense Society Parental Leave Scheme, including eligibility and how to apply, by clicking here.

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

DAUK took legal advice on the Department of Health and Social Care’s consultation on the draft General Medical Council Order 2026.

The association is now weighing its position alongside the British Medical Association (BMA), which has begun legal proceedings against the government over the same issue.

The draft Order proposes preserving and widening the GMC’s right of appeal against MPTS decisions, which is a significant reversal of the policy consensus reached after the Bawa-Garba case.

Williams Review

Following the independent Williams Review in 2018, the government accepted that the GMC’s right of appeal against MPTS decisions should be removed, in order to strengthen the independence of medical adjudication and rebuild doctors’ trust in the regulator. The draft Order abandons that commitment.

DAUK also shares the BMA’s concern that the consultation misrepresents the findings of Lord Mann’s review and fails to give consultees enough information to respond meaningfully – raising questions about whether the consultation process is lawful.

DAUK co-chair Dr Matt Kneale said: “Eight years ago, after the Williams Review, the government accepted that the GMC should lose its power to appeal tribunal decisions – the very power used against Dr Bawa-Garba, which did such lasting damage to doctors’ trust in the GMC.

Broken promise

“For ministers now to quietly retain and even extend that power, through a consultation that doctors say misrepresents the evidence and gives them too little to respond to, breaks that promise.

“We have taken legal advice and, alongside the BMA, we are actively considering our next steps.”

Meanwhile, DAUK has joined 12 other medical organisations urging the government to reconsider its plan to retain the GMC’s right to appeal the decisions of its own tribunal service.

Coalition of medical organisations

In a joint letter to Minister of State for Health, Karin Smyth MP, the coalition argues the GMC’s right of appeal risks seriously undermining the profession’s and the public’s trust in the independence of the tribunal process, and the regulator itself.

Read more about the coalition’s calls.

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

We’ve signed an open letter to Dr Michael McBride, Chief Medical Officer for Northern Ireland, and Professor Sir Chris Whitty KCB FRS, Chief Medical Officer for England.

It urges them to work with NHS Practitioner Health and the Northern Ireland Executive to commission an extension of the service to doctors and dentists in Northern Ireland.

The open letter has been coordinated by the charity Doctors in Distress and signed by a coalition of leading UK medical organisations, including DAUK.

NHS Practitioner Health

It points out that doctors working in England, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey can all access confidential, expert mental health and addiction care designed for the profession.

Northern Ireland’s 5,200 whole-time-equivalent doctors and dentists are alone in the United Kingdom in having no equivalent dedicated provision.

The signatories draw on published evidence to set out the scale of unmet need:

• A 2024 British Medical Association member survey found that 44% of doctors reported suffering from depression, anxiety, stress, burnout or other mental health conditions related to or made worse by their work.
• Northern Ireland records the highest prevalence of common mental health conditions of any UK region, affecting at least one in five adults.
• HSC trusts recorded a sickness absence rate of 7.1% in 2024 – the highest of any UK
• health system – alongside a 5.6% medical and dental vacancy rate and the longest waiting lists in the United Kingdom.
• Applying NISRA benchmarks to the Northern Ireland medical and dental workforce produces a conservative estimate that mental-health-related absence accounts for between 25,000 and 31,000 lost working days each year, the equivalent of removing between 110 and 140 full-time doctors and dentists from the system annually.

Mental health support

Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK co-chair, said: “Doctors in Northern Ireland should not be left behind when it comes to accessing confidential mental health support.

“The pressures facing the workforce are immense, and dedicated services like NHS Practitioner Health make a real difference.

“Extending this support to Northern Ireland is essential for the wellbeing of clinicians and the safety and sustainability of patient care.”

Mary Jane Roberts, chief executive of Doctors in Distress, said: “It is an outrageous inequality that Northern Irish doctors are being treated like this.

Proven service

“It is so easily solved: NHS Practitioner Health is an expert, proven service, ready to provide the care that is needed. This is an ethical, speedy win. I am sure the CMOs as leaders of the medical profession will act to resolve the issue.”

Professor Baroness Gerada DBE FRCGP FRCPsych, patron of Doctors in Distress and founder of NHS Practitioner Health, said: “Now, more than ever, support for doctors is needed. There is so much distress and pain out there in the general public and our patients.

“We have to keep our healthcare professionals working, resilient, able to support the people that are really desperate.”

Read the letter in full.

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

DAUK warned the proposals go against the Williams review and would ‘dismay doctors across the country’.

It said the timing of the announced reforms was ‘troubling’, coming as the GMC appeals the clearance of Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah.

Dismay doctors

Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK co-chair, said: “Doctors across the country will be dismayed that the government has abandoned the cross-profession consensus established by the Williams review.

“We were promised the GMC would lose its power to appeal its own tribunal’s decisions.

“Instead, this consultation retains that power and creates new ones. At a time when the GMC is actively appealing the clearance of a doctor found to have committed no misconduct, the timing could not be more troubling.

“The framing of this announcement – as though the GMC has been too slow to punish doctors – ignores everything we know about how the GMC operates.

NHS Staff Survey results

“Its own data shows ethnic minority doctors are disproportionately referred.

“The recently-published NHS Staff Survey shows one in 10 doctors were physically attacked at work.

“The safety crisis in the NHS is not that doctors are getting away with misconduct.

“It is that doctors are being attacked, burned out and driven from the profession while a regulator with a proven track record of bias is handed yet more power.”

Human impact

DAUK also pointed to the human impact of the current regulatory process. The GMC’s own rolling three-year data shows that 36 doctors died while under investigation or being monitored between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2023. The GMC reported fewer than three suicides to protect individual identification.

Dr Shonnelly Novintan, DAUK’s Learn Not Blame lead, said: “The framing of the reforms focus on individual doctors rather than addressing systemic pressures, and this contributes to a worsening blame culture at a time when doctors under investigation already face high suicide rates.”

The reforms, the Government said, are a major modernisation of medical regulation, describing them as the most significant changes since 1983.

Rapid review

They follow a rapid review conducted by Lord John Mann into antisemitism and other forms of racism in the health service.

Alongside wider proposals, the Government is consulting on the first tranche of recommendations from Lord Mann’s review.

The GMC Order will consult on delivering these recommendations into law, introducing three key changes:

• The GMC will retain its existing right to appeal decisions made by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) to the courts.
• The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) will receive new powers to challenge interim decisions made by the MPTS, and the GMC will receive equivalent powers.
• Regulators will be required to share information with the PSA when requested.

Charlie Massey, GMC chief executive and registrar, said: “This is an important and long-awaited step towards a more responsive and compassionate approach to healthcare regulation.”

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.