HCSA – the hospital doctors’ union has issued the following response to today’s release of the independent review into regulator the GMC’s handling of the Dr Manjula Arora case.
HCSA President Dr Naru Narayanan said: “Yet again the case of Dr Arora has highlighted the GMC’s too often callous and punitive approach which has damaged so many doctors’ lives needlessly.
“This review reinforces what the medical profession has been saying for many years. Ethnic minority doctors in particular will take no comfort from its findings. The fact that once again the GMC has to be told to improve its ‘cultural awareness’ reinforces the view that it is institutionally biased.
“The specifics are simply damning. The authors highlight multiple missed opportunities for the GMC to rethink its handling. It singles out a lack of compassion and an approach which seeks unjustly to deliver the worst possible outcome for doctors. Effectively they call out the GMC for reaching for the sledgehammer over a small misdemeanour where a quiet word would be appropriate but instead a potentially career-wrecking tribunal was pursued.
“The problem is that none of this is new. We have heard countless warnings that the GMC routinely operates an unduly hard-line, adversarial approach. There are significant and well-founded fears over its treatment of ethnic minority doctors. Likewise we’ve had repeated apologies whenever the regulator has been caught out but then it happens all over again.
“Until there is real change hospital doctors will have little faith in the GMC, which they are forced to fund.”
ENDS