BMA annual meeting: GMC should be funded by public not doctors, says BMA

The BMA has called for the General Medical Council to be funded from the public purse rather than by doctors.

Delegates at the BMA’s annual representatives meeting in Belfast on Tuesday 21 June voted in favour of a motion calling for the association to “support a move to shift funding” to the public.

Proposing the motion, Rajiv Kumar, from the BMA’s Staff Associate Specialists and Specialty Doctors Committee, pointed out that most complaints received by the GMC were made by patients.

“These [complaints] are the least likely to go to a formal hearing, but they do result in devastation and even deaths for the doctors involved,” Kumar said. “The GMC judges us guilty until proven innocent. What a travesty,” he …