The United Kingdom's General Medical Council is asking doctors and the public for their views on several options for changing its size and structure and increasing the number of lay members who participate in its work.

Last July the GMC set up a working group after months of complaints from doctors and the public about, for example, the slowness of the council's procedures and the small number of lay members. These complaints culminated in a vote of no confidence in the council “as presently constituted and functioning” at the BMA's annual meeting (8 July, p 69).

In its document The Structure, Constitution and …