Poorly Performing Doctors

The duties of a doctor registered with the General Medical Council

Patients must be able to trust doctors with their lives and well-being. To justify that trust, we as a profession have a duty to maintain a good standard of practice and care and to show respect for human life. In particular as a doctor you must:

• act quickly to protect patients from risk if you have good reason to believe that you or a colleague may not be fit to practise;

If there is evidence that patients may be at risk, GMC can suspend or restrict a doctor's registration as an interim measure. More information about fitness to practise procedures is available from: http://www.gmc-uk.org/concerns/index.asp

If a doctor is safe to practice but seriously under performing action should be taken to improve the doctors performance. This may include contact the clinical governance lead GP in the doctor’s PCT.

Each of the PCTs has arrangements for dealing with concerns about a doctors performance:

• Bath & North east Somerset PCT http://www.banes-pct.nhs.uk
• Bristol PCT www.bristolpct.nhs.uk 
• North Somerset PCT http://www.northsomerset.nhs.uk 
• South Gloucestershire PCT http://www.sglos-pct.nhs.uk 

The National Clinical Assessment Authority (NCAA)

The NCAA is a special health authority and a support service to health authorities, primary care trusts and hospital and community trusts who are faced with concerns over the performance of an individual doctor. The NCAA also provides support to the employers of hospital and community dentists about whom there are performance concerns: http://www.ncaa.nhs.uk

What is clinical governance?

Clinical governance is a system through which NHS organisations are accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish

More information from BMJ article: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/317/7150/61

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