Health Secretary Wes Streeting has unveiled sweeping reforms to the regulation of NHS doctors, giving medical watchdogs greater powers to suspend and strike off practitioners who express antisemitic or racist views — in what the Department of Health describes as the most significant shake-up of the system in four decades.
The changes follow sustained pressure on the General Medical Council over its handling of cases involving doctors who made inflammatory remarks on social media, with the department acknowledging there had been “too many” recent examples of antisemitic conduct going without swift consequence.
Central to the reform is a new power allowing the GMC to challenge decisions made by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service when those rulings are deemed insufficient to protect public safety. The Professional Standards Authority, which oversees all health regulators, will also receive enhanced powers to scrutinise and contest tribunal outcomes. The department described the current regulatory framework as “outdated and too bureaucratic,” saying it had hampered the GMC’s ability to act decisively.
The reforms draw on recommendations from Lord Mann, the Government’s antisemitism tsar, whom Sir Keir Starmer asked to review the system in October. The first tranche of his recommendations is now being taken forward alongside a formal consultation on changes to the legislation governing medical regulation.
The overhaul has been shaped in part by the case of Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon who was initially allowed to continue practising after a tribunal ruled she could not be suspended due to her right to freedom of expression, despite social media posts that included a gesture directed at Jewish protesters and a series of inflammatory statements. She was subsequently barred from practice for 15 months at a second hearing in November.
Streeting said it was “unacceptable” that Jewish patients and staff did not currently feel safe within a health service meant to serve everyone equally. “I will not allow it to continue,” he said, adding that he looked forward to implementing Lord Mann’s recommendations.
Lord Mann said the reforms would help deliver “swift and meaningful consequences” for racism in healthcare, acknowledging that “for too long, the system has been too slow and too cumbersome.”
GMC chief executive Charlie Massey welcomed the changes, saying they would allow the regulator to “respond more quickly and flexibly when patient safety is at risk.”
Separately, the Government is also consulting on removing a rule that currently prevents regulators from considering fitness to practise concerns involving historic sexual abuse allegations after five years have elapsed.
