Very Interesting that this has been picked up by the media, I emailed the GMC a few weeks ago please see my question and their response below. To be fair I had not even thought about the issues around disciplinary sanctions – such as upheld suspensions and formal warnings – issued to a doctor before they transitioned.
not really a surprise that the GMC is another totally captured organisation....I need to go and have a read of the Gender Recognition Act!!
Hello
I wish to raise a query and possibly a concern about your policy of allowing members to reassign their gender and the future consequences of your organisation allowing such actions.
This question has been brought to mind most recently in the Peggie Vs Fife Health Board on going case.
For your information this case involves to my knowledge a person Mr Theodore Benedict Onni UPTON who identified as a man at the time of his first GMC registration - Registration number (7844321) and your records currently state "This person is not on the Medical Register and may not practise as a doctor in the UK.”
However this man is as, far as I am aware practising as a doctor in the Uk. This is because he has decided to change his ‘gender’ and is now registered under the name Elisabeth Ruth Annikki UPTON - Registration number 8038543.
Can you please explain how any member of the public would be able, upon searching for this doctor for any reason, be alerted to the fact that he had previously registered under a different name. As far as I can see your online system does not have any way of connecting these two records which relate to the same person.
I believe you as an organisation are the gatekeepers of who is and who is not legally able to practise as a doctor I would like to understand how you are fulfilling your obligation to provide relevant and up to date information to the general public.
Without the ability to be able to see all of your members registrations linked in an appropriate way, the general public have no ability to be able to question the qualifications of anyone presenting themselves as a doctor on your registration database.
I look forward to your response.
Their Response Received this afternoon
Thank you for your recent email.
I’m sure you will appreciate that we are not able to discuss the personal details of individual doctors with third parties without the consent of the doctor concerned, but I hope you will find the following clarifications helpful.
The primary purpose of the register is to give confidence that doctors practising medicine in the UK have the training, skills and experience needed to provide the standards of care that patients expect.
The Form and Content of the Registers Regulations 2015 require us to collect gender rather than sex information from doctors when they register with us. We offer a choice of two options for them – ‘man’ or ‘woman’. We publish this information and state that it will not necessarily equate to birth sex in every instance.
Our approach takes into account the fact that there are clear legal protections afforded to individuals, including doctors, relating to the use and disclosure of their personal information and their private lives. Most notably this includes human rights and equalities law, but data protection law and the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) are also relevant. We could not publish the biological sex of registrants in all cases, given the disclosure of someone’s previous identity when they have, or have applied for, a gender recognition certificate is an offence under the GRA.
There are a limited range of circumstances where we will issue a new GMC reference number to a registrant on an exceptional basis. This could include where they have changed their gender, but there are other scenarios, including where they are at risk of violence or harassment.
The new and old records will not be publicly linked to one another. We always retain an internal link between the two records, which is visible to the small number of people who require this information. This mitigates the risk that concerns about a doctor’s treatment when they practised in a previous name will not be picked up under the new record.
Finally, please note the guidance on our website to doctors on the
use of their registered name and GMC number. In
Good medical practice, which sets out the principles, values and standards of professional behaviour,
paragraph 83 says that a doctor must ‘provide their registered name and GMC number’ to anyone who they encounter in their professional role who asks for it. This gives assurance that patients and employers can check a doctor’s qualifications and registration status and raise concerns if they need to.
I need to read something nice as a palate cleanser.
