Plans to hold GMC Malpractice Hearings in Private

[Mark]

"A sad day for press freedom", says the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-Incompetent-doctors-secret-GMC-hearings.html

Fitness to practice hearings may in future take place in private, with press and public banned. It appears that the proposal is that the accused practitioners would have the option for a private hearing and presumably not all hearings would be secret. The rationale is that doctors shouldn't be exposed in the press in cases where they may eventually be found innocent.

I've linked to the Daily Mail here, because as far as I can tell from Google News, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard were the only UK papers to cover this story. A familiar pattern here - lots of interesting stories are only reported in these sources, and Guardian readers, it seems, don't even need to know that this change has been proposed...

 

[Enid]

Strange one this Mark - it struck me as awful for instance that Dr Myhill should be listed amongst the clearly "unfit" - drunks, child and more molesters etc. - breaking just about everything in the Hippocratic Oath. Scary they are out there and the volume almost unbelieveable. There is of course the admission that some Docs are falsely accused in the first place and perhaps the GMC should investigate more before the harrowing process of a "court" public or private. Ideally of course GMC proceedings should be open and available for scrutiny.