Doctors who express racist or antisemitic views could be struck off under new government reforms targeting medical regulation. Ministers say the overhaul will speed up disciplinary action and strengthen powers to protect patients and NHS staff, reports Asian LIte Newsdesk
Doctors found to have expressed racist or antisemitic views will face being struck off under sweeping reforms to medical regulation, the government has said, as it moves to overhaul disciplinary processes and speed up decision-making.
The changes are part of a wider shake-up of how complaints are handled, with ministers arguing that the current system is too slow and fails to protect patients and public confidence in the profession.
The health secretary Wes Streeting has announced reforms to the General Medical Council (GMC) aimed at ensuring doctors who use “intolerable racist and antisemitic language” will be struck off. The measures form part of a broader overhaul of the medical regulator’s powers and procedures, the Times reported.
Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, was asked in November to conduct a rapid review into the failures of health regulators. In his initial recommendations, published today, he said the current system was “currently too slow and cumbersome to tackle racism”.
He called for the GMC to receive greater powers to challenge decisions of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), which rules on whether doctors should be suspended. Another body, the Professional Standards Authority, will also be given greater powers to scrutinise and challenge decisions made by tribunals.
The changes follow a series of cases in which antisemitic doctors have escaped suspension or striking off at tribunal. Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, a junior doctor who made a “slit your throat” gesture at Jews, was let off by the MPTS because of her “right of freedom of speech”.
She was subsequently suspended 15 months at a second hearing, following a series of antisemitic posts. Streeting said: “The NHS is a universal health service, which means that everyone, regardless of race, religion or belief, should feel safe seeking its care. It is unacceptable this is not the current reality for many.”
“I am grateful to Lord John Mann for his rapid investigation into how we can overhaul the current system and I look forward to setting his common-sense recommendations in motion to ensure NHS patients and staff get the protection they expect.”
He has also announced a series of modernisation reforms to the GMC, with the Department of Health saying these would make the system “faster, less bureaucratic and better equipped to protect patients and NHS staff”. This will require legislative change and would represent the biggest overhaul of the regulation of medical professionals since 1983.
Lord Mann said: Racism, including anti-Jewish racism, has no place in the health sector or our NHS, and those who engage in it should face swift and meaningful consequences. For too long, the system has been too slow and too cumbersome to deliver that. These reforms will help deliver change.”
“I am pleased that the government has moved quickly to act on my recommendations, and I look forward to working with it to implement the rest of my review.”
The GMC is a public body that is responsible for regulating the medical profession, setting standards, and removing doctors from the medical register if necessary. The MPTS is an independent service, funded by the GMC, that acts as an employment tribunal for the medical profession.
The GMC investigates doctors’ fitness to practise and presents cases to the MPTS, where a panel decides whether a doctor should be struck off or suspended. Under the proposed reforms, regulators will have stronger powers to intervene where tribunal outcomes are considered insufficient.
Ministers argue that the reforms are necessary to restore public confidence in the disciplinary system and ensure that cases involving serious misconduct, including racism and antisemitism, are handled more effectively. The government has indicated that further details of the legislative changes will be set out in due course.
