Doctors could risk losing their licence if they fail to report fitness to practise concerns about their colleagues, MPs have recommended. In its first annual review of the functions of the General Medical Council, the House of Commons Health Committee has called for the regulator to send “a clear signal” to doctors that they are at as much risk of being investigated for failing to report concerns about a fellow doctor as they are from poor practice on their own part. Senior doctors and clinical team leaders in hospitals would be most accountable, but there would be “questions asked of everybody,” said Stephen Dorrell MP, chair of the health committee.
When CQC board member Kay Sheldon spoke out against the health watchdog, it immediately began a concerted campaign to discredit her, she tells Nina Lakhani
Robert Francis, the inquiry chairman, said that one of his top priorities was for the NHS constitution to be rewritten, making it explicit that “patients are put first” and “everything done by the NHS should be informed by this ethos”. He recommended that the Health Secretary also consider stipulating that NHS staff “put patients before themselves”.