GMC should have power to appeal decisions on fitness to practise, MPs say

The UK government must act “as soon as possible” to give the General Medical Council power to appeal against decisions of fitness to practise panels of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service that it considers too lenient, the House of Commons Health Committee urges.1

The committee’s chairman, the Conservative MP Stephen Dorrell, has called on the government to grant the power by secondary legislation, known as a section 60 order, because the chances that a draft bill including the power would receive royal assent and become law before the general election were “very remote,” he said.

The GMC has been asking for the power since it transferred fitness to practise decisions to the semi-independent tribunal service in 2012. The government intended to make a section 60 order in 2014 but is now proposing that the power be contained in a draft bill governing eight regulators of health and social care professionals.2

The draft bill, drawn up by the three law commissions for England …