GMC urges national support service for doctors’ health concerns

The General Medical Council (GMC) has called for a national support service for doctors. The recommendation comes as part of the regulator’s report on doctors who die by suicide while under GMC fitness to practise investigations.

The report, which was published on 19 December, found that 28 doctors had died by suicide or by suspected suicide while being investigated.1

The GMC said that wider factors that often contributed to a doctor being referred for a fitness to practise investigation, such as the breakdown of a marriage, financial hardship, or bereavement, needed to be tackled. The …