Mid Staffs and professional regulatory bodies

Mid Staffs and professional regulatory bodies

Today it was announced that the General Medical Council (GMC) was dropping the investigation into doctors that had been implicated in poor care at Mid Staffs FT. The television news featured Prime Minister commenting that the GMC and Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) had difficult questions to answer. Unless this was previously filmed footage, his comments were oddly ill-informed - he commented that nobody had been struck off (whereas three nurses have been struck off). 

Just as politicians shouldn't comment on the judicial process, they shouldn't comment on a quasi-judicial process. The GMC and NMC are accountable to the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence. Their decisions are also subject to judicial review. Just like the criminal justice system, professional regulatory processes must be immune from political pressure. 

Whatever the temptations to respond to public outcry by overriding procedure, possibly in an attempt to 'uphold public confidence', and despite the oft-repeated phrase from the case of Bolton v Law Society that “the reputation of the profession is more important than the fortunes of any individual member", the GMC and NMC should not sacrifice professionals on the altar of public opinion. However frustrating it may be for patients and relatives, in a collective enterprise like healthcare it can be impossible to pin blame on one individual. So the failure to censure or sanction any doctors should not be automatically labelled as a failure of regulation. A witch-hunt might be momentarily satisfying, but it will not achieve the desired improvements.