Do you want more information about your doctor?
The General Medical Council (GMC) has recently launched an important public consultation about the UK medical register. This could be a significant move towards making the medical register more useful for patients and their families.
What is the consultation about?
The GMC oversees the medical register. The register provides a list of all the doctors who are registered and licensed to practise medicine in the UK. It includes information such as a doctor’s name, when and where they got their first medical qualification, and whether they are safe to practise medicine. The GMC now wants to understand how the register could be more open, relevant and useful for patients.
The GMC is exploring the idea of enabling doctors to provide additional information about their practice on the register on a voluntary basis. This would mean, for example, that doctors could choose to add details about the areas of medicine in which they work, their employment history and the location where they work, as well as links to sites providing feedback from patients. This could give patients greater assurance of the skills, experience and competence of doctors in the UK.
You can read more about the consultation on the British Medical Journal blog from Niall Dickson, the Chief Executive of the GMC.
Take part today
Share your views on the proposals via the GMC’s website – the consultation is open until 7 October. If you are part of a patient group/forum and would like to discuss the consultation further, please contact Jessie Roff (jessie.roff@gmc-uk.org) and Laura Tivey (laura.tivey@gmc-uk.org) at the GMC.