UK paediatricians will debate a motion of no confidence in the General Medical Council’s handling of disciplinary cases involving child protection work, at their professional association’s forthcoming meeting.

The motion has been put forward by 32 members of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and will be tabled at the college’s annual spring meeting, to be held at York University from 14 April.

Many but not all of the motion’s signatories are members of Professionals Against Child Abuse, a group formed last year in response to high profile GMC cases against paediatricians.

The motion argues that paediatricians are more harshly treated than other specialties, citing cases in which other doctors escaped removal from the register after convictions for assaulting children and …