Like most responders to this article I am appalled by the GMC’s decision and the injustice it seeks to inflict on Dr Bawa Garba. But I am not surprised.
The GMC in its present incarnation is a strange institution that mighty well have been created in the mid-20th century when the journalist Henry Fairlie proclaimed the existence of the Establishment.
It is a registered charity whose activities are overseen by a council of twelve members. Six of them are doctors and the other six are quaintly described as ‘lay members’, presumably because they are medically unconsecrated. All of them are appointed by the Privy Council, none are elected.
The chair of the GMC is a medical knight with a distinguished academic record worthy of recognition. The other counsellors are, no doubt, equally worthy citizens. Information published by the GMC reveals that each of them is a seasoned quango and/or committee sitter gifted £18,000 a year, plus expenses, for ‘up to’ three days work a month for the GMC.
The present chair of the council stresses that potential members have to appear before an ‘independent panel’ chaired by himself presumably to judge their suitability before they are appointed. The most recent panel consisted of a baroness who is Deputy Chair of the British Council, a member of the Board of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, and the knighted Chairman of London Works who is also a Trustee of the Mayors Fund For London… I think I get the drift.
In the second half of the 20th century the GMC flirted with the idea of reforming itself but, as is the way with flirtation, the affair was confused and temporary. Then, early in this century, while public attention was distracted by the Shipman scandal, our masters imposed a system that included devolving regulatory governance to an unelected body populated by sort of folk who, in Henry Fairlie’s time, were described as the Great and the Good.
The treatment of Dr Bawa Garba shows just how remote this type of regulator can be from the world inhabited by those it seeks to regulate.
Competing interests:
From 1971 to 1996 I was a member of the GMC serving as its Rebel in Residence
Rapid Response:
Alice in Quangoland
Like most responders to this article I am appalled by the GMC’s decision and the injustice it seeks to inflict on Dr Bawa Garba. But I am not surprised.
The GMC in its present incarnation is a strange institution that mighty well have been created in the mid-20th century when the journalist Henry Fairlie proclaimed the existence of the Establishment.
It is a registered charity whose activities are overseen by a council of twelve members. Six of them are doctors and the other six are quaintly described as ‘lay members’, presumably because they are medically unconsecrated. All of them are appointed by the Privy Council, none are elected.
The chair of the GMC is a medical knight with a distinguished academic record worthy of recognition. The other counsellors are, no doubt, equally worthy citizens. Information published by the GMC reveals that each of them is a seasoned quango and/or committee sitter gifted £18,000 a year, plus expenses, for ‘up to’ three days work a month for the GMC.
The present chair of the council stresses that potential members have to appear before an ‘independent panel’ chaired by himself presumably to judge their suitability before they are appointed. The most recent panel consisted of a baroness who is Deputy Chair of the British Council, a member of the Board of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, and the knighted Chairman of London Works who is also a Trustee of the Mayors Fund For London… I think I get the drift.
In the second half of the 20th century the GMC flirted with the idea of reforming itself but, as is the way with flirtation, the affair was confused and temporary. Then, early in this century, while public attention was distracted by the Shipman scandal, our masters imposed a system that included devolving regulatory governance to an unelected body populated by sort of folk who, in Henry Fairlie’s time, were described as the Great and the Good.
The treatment of Dr Bawa Garba shows just how remote this type of regulator can be from the world inhabited by those it seeks to regulate.
Competing interests: From 1971 to 1996 I was a member of the GMC serving as its Rebel in Residence