GMC Inquiry into suicides - Whitewash

GMC WHITEWASHES BODY COUNT

Finally, only 10 months late and after the deadline for written submissions to the Parliamentary Health Committee, the GMC has published its report into the suicides associated with their Fitness to Practice Procedures

The whitewashed report showed  that doctors have a high suicide rate and the number of deaths associated with the GMC Fitness to Practice procedures was no more than you'd expect. These  doctors already have mental health problems, and suicide is inevitable.

However in 2013 the number of referrals to the GMC went up and so did the death rate, reaching an eye watering 20 deaths. This suggests a link between deaths and the GMC fitness to practice procedures.

Sandra Horsfall - National Patient Safety Executive - not exactly a disinterested or independent party! Hard to imagine she wasn't secretly rubbing her hands in glee at the thought of so many dead doctors.

Conclusions

1 - Lots of doctors under Fitness to Practice Procedures die, - 114 since 2005. Ten a year, year in year out. But only 28 of these deaths were described as suicide or likely to be suicide - the others, well Hey! people just die, don't they? No reason, they just keel over and that's it, dead as the budgie in Monty Python.  So what happened to the other 86 - no idea and who gives a toss?

2 - The GMC, because it has big responsibilities and is very busy, is not always as nice to doctors as it might be.

3 - Lets set up a Special Support Service for doctor and call it "Airy Fairy Land"  It won't cost that much and doctors are made of money. At worst, the GMC can add the cost of it to their annual registration fee. It would only be £22 a year, that is nothing. Then the GMC can pretend to be nice to doctors, even though they won't be. And the GMC's psychopathic behaviour can be rubber stamped

4 - Emotional Resiliency Training prevents suicide so lets make sure all medical students are lovely and resilient. "Evidence based medicine" I think not.


And of course, no mention of referring the GMC to the Health & Safety Executive or Court of Human Rights for Criminal Charges of Corporate Manslaughter.


Doctor Bloggs would like the following questions answered:

1) Does the GMC have any comment on the remaining 86 deaths during these five years, as this is a surprisingly large number of deaths associated with a supposedly benign process?

2) Do you have any comments on the adjacent actions in relation to any single death?

This is an anonymised case history of one such death. A young doctor in her early thirties, a consultant in a front line specialty, with bipolar disorder and other mental health problems, was due to return to work following a period of ill health. An email was sent by the GMC Fitness to Practice Directorate to her and her employers, three days before she was due to return work, indicating the GMC conditions on her registration had been changed, preventing her from returning to work. Within twentyfour hours of receiving this email, she had taken a fatal dose of drugs and died as a result of this overdose.

3) Are the GMC staff working within the Fitness to Practice Directorate aware that whoever sent that email may face criminal charges under Article 2 of the European Community Human Rights Ac?

4) Has the GMC considered that health of doctors, whilst the National Support Service is set up, is best managed by Occupational Health Physicians. This is the case with other Safety Critical professions such as pilots, train drivers and other emergency services, rather than invoking the stigma and discrimination that results from the involvement of a doctor’s regulatory body?

Answers on a Post Card to Doctor Tracey Bloggs, aka Lord Glendinning Miller, c/o the Other Side

For the record, Doctor Bloggs first wrote about this in 2008

Lest we Forget
The GMC 9 

And just in case you wondered

Nothing has changed 

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