General Medical Council has decided that their adjudication processes are in keeping with Article 6 of Human Rights Act 1998 ( the right to a fair hearing). Reasons given: not many doctors appeal against their Fitness to Practice determinations.
Surely, that must be true, as there are some doctors who are having such good times in bed with their patients that they are too happy to appeal GMC decisions that allow them to do so.
On the other hand if a doctor appearing before GMC Fitness to Practice Committee is a woman who asserted her authority during the course of her work and told some male colleagues off, GMC will put" hundreds" of conditions on her medical practice to make it impossible for her to find any work, earn any money and pay lawyers to work on the appeal. So again, GMC wins as no appeals here either.
Medical defense organizations are run by doctors who fear for their own registration if they upset GMC. My experience is that they sabotage appeal requests.
MPS refused to protect women doctors who are defamed because in the words of one of their directors: "Women do not earn as much as men and are not as often in the newspapers". And when they are, MPS hides barristers advice from their membership fee paying member. Wicked.
Medical Defense Organizations can choose to drop the doctor at any stage from their books as the indemnity cover is actually discretionary.
Another reason why some people do not appeal GMC Fitness to Practice Decisions is because they kill themselves instead.
The third reason is discouragement given to doctors by depressed barristers who already know how useless the High Court in London is when it comes to appeals against the tyrannical, sexist and racist medical regulator. So, some people figured out it is just not worth the effort.
Fourthly, British law itself is incompatible with Human Rights Act 1998, so appealing to British Courts may be really silly. I wrote before about some Statutory Instruments. Now, new Statutory Instrument 2010/474 out this year further reinforces bad law. GMC FTP determinations are valid despite any defect in the appointment of any panelist. In fact, one does not even have to be appointed to sit there and judge a doctor. Any obnoxious individual holding obnoxious prejudices can get paid to sit at FTP.
Please, click here to read 2010/474 and you will notice that even wrong word found a way there. They appear to have intended to put in a word "hearing" but put "appeal" instead in Rule 7 (2). Yes, it is a big difference.
It is just GMC trying to prevent appeals against its stitch ups, but getting its pants around its ankles instead.
What a Freudian slip.
And yes, those boys at GMC think they can do it all by themselves. It sure did not take them long.
