Have you complained to the GMC? (general medical council)

[nameymcnamechanger]

SO I've been meaning to ask this for a while.....
I am considering doing this and I was wondering whether anyone would feel able to share their experience.

What happens? Is it like a court where you give evidence?
Does it take ages?
TIA

Best thing for you to do is go to their website. You'll only have to give evidence if the investigation concludes that the doctor should appear before a panel - and it's generally only the VERY serious cases that do. If the case does go to a panel hearing then you would have to give evidence like a court (but like a court they can do things like behind screen & video conferences).

GMC website

thanks I've read it quite a bit trying to decide whether to complain or not but I can't really see anything about what they do with a complaint except request your notes so I was wondering if anyone had anything they would be willing to share

I'm a dentist and we have the GDC rather than GMC but complaining to the GMC is like going straight to the Prime Minister when you may have had more joy complaining to your GP practice or PCT (or someone else depending upon what your complaint is). Have you exhausted these avenues or are you aiming straight for getting the Dr (or surgeon?) struck off etc?

Hope you're ok and coping with whatever has gone wrong (I may have missed somthing as only an occasional visitor), definitely look at the GMC website and good luck.

Thanks I think Grumpy one of the issues is that I don't know what I 'want' I do actually think that the Dr is incompetant (hospital consultant)

No but I wish I had done. I wrote a long complaint to a hospital but they never followed it up properly. I wish I had pursued it more at the time because now the issues that they said were "resolved" have escalated to a now very serious condition.

Problem is, you think the consultant is incompetent (with very good reason), but the hospital, PCT and the GMC look at a doctor's practise overall - and over a period of time. They may treat your complaint as a 'single clinical incident' or one off.

If you're not satisfied with the hospital's response, you can complain to the Parliamentary Ombudsman in the first instance.

If you complain to the GMC they look at and assess the 'seriousness' of it. If they open a case they will request all your medical notes for the relevant period, ask for your version of events, ask the doctor for their comments, contact all his employers for THEIR comments etc. Depending on what is found out will decide the next course of action. Broadly speaking the GMC can decide:
Close the case with no action
Close the case with advice
Issue a warning (which stays on his record for 5 years)
Impose conditions on his practise
Suspend the doctor
Erase the doctor

The last 3 are usually decided by a Fitness to Practise Panel.
The first three are decided by trained, senior staff.

I would write to the hospital again and request a meeting with the consultant. For legal reasons, other people will be there, including the hospital legal representative, the doctor's solicitor and a representative of the hospitla board.

You may find that the correspondence from your consultant has been 'doctored' by the legal team without his knowledge.

At the meeting you can ask for some of his other cases to be independantly reviewed.

DH had a crap colleague and it took them nearly 4 years to get him struck off. A key factor was the nurses finally plucking up the courage to complain. DH's repeated complaints resulted in DH being told to back off or he could have a bullying charge on him.

When lost of patients and nurses complain, the hospital trusts are far more likely to take notice.