Decrease in doctors' suicides during investigations by the General Medical Council following our campaign

1. Ross in 1971 researched suicides in doctors for the previous 75 years and found increased rates. Naturally, researcher asked why. Other studies followed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2719447/#B9

2. Doctors4Justice have been campaigning for years to, at least, reduce the number of suicides in doctors investigated by the General Medical Council (GMC).
http://www.doctors4justice.net/search?q=suicide

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/names_of_doctors_who_died_follow

Dr Liz Miller repeatedly communicated her knowledge and concerns regarding doctors' mental health, including doctors' suicides while investigated by GMC, and set up self-help group, but suicides still went on.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/doctors-cant-be-depressed-1801673.html

Doctors4Justice even went to court to get the names of doctors who died. However, we lost although our case was better prepared than that of Information Commissioner and the General Medical Council (GMC).  At D4J we felt that there was determination to prevent further independent investigations.

Dr No calculated shocking statistics: 20 times higher suicide rates in doctors investigated by GMC:
http://www.badmed.net/bad-medicine-blog/2013/08/dropping-flies.html

In August 2013 Dr Helen Bright started an e-petition on government website asking for confidential enquiry into the deaths of doctors who died while investigated by GMC. Over 2000 people signed, many of whom are doctors.
https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/54034
The petition did not reach the treshold necessary for the debate in Parliament to take place:

"response_threshold_reached_at":null,"government_response_at":null,"debate_threshold_reached_at":null,"scheduled_debate_date":null,"debate_outcome_at":null,"rejection":null,"government_response":null,"debate":null,"signatures_by_country":[],"signatures_by_constituency":[]}}}

Petition closed in November 2013.

Dr Helen Bright wrote to Pulse and BMJ using statistics obtained from FOIA and Dr no's calculations. Medical press took up the issue.
http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=20018744

In December 2014 year GMC published their internal review of the deaths.
http://www.gmc-uk.org/Internal_review_into_suicide_in_FTP_processes.pdf_59088696.pdf

We were not happy with this report as it could not be independent and author had no medical qualifications. The report did not even give what she was Consultant in.

On 3rd December 2015 press release GMC reported they had commissioned the trusted hand of Professor Louis Appleby for further advice. He refused to hear evidence from Dr Helen Bright stating he has already spoken with people who think system should be different. Hmmm. Who has not spoken with such people at dinner parties, we wonder? You will note that 3rd December 2015 press release is different from the date on published GMC's Internal Review into suicides which is dated 15th December 2015.

In 2016 in Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine Drs Casey and Choong published their paper :
Suicide whilst under GMC's fitness to practise investigation: Were those deaths preventable?
identifying referral to GMC as a suicide risk:
http://d1c7lpjmvlh0qr.cloudfront.net/uploads/o/w/n/JFLMsubmission.pdf

September 2017 somebody (anonymous) obtained an update on doctors' suicides:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/number_of_doctors_commiting_suic#incoming-1041544

According to our calculations there has been approximately, 70% reduction in suicides in doctors investigated by the General Medical Council for the years 2014-2016 according to their figures.

And what would have happened if Prof. Appleby did speak with D4J? How much more we could have reduced those suicides?