General Medical Council

Steve Barclay Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

A nine-year-old constituent of mine, Jack Moate, died in 2015, two months after an operation was carried out on his hips by an orthopaedic consultant at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge. Jack’s mother, Elizabeth, said he spent his final weeks in “constant agonising pain”. At the time, she had been told that his treatment had been properly reviewed and that no concerns had been identified, but an independent clinical review later found

“evidence that fatal physical harm was caused”.

A nine-year-old boy in constant, agonising pain.

As the case has been referred to the coroner, I am restricted by the sub judice rule under which we operate in commenting further on the details of Jack’s case at this stage. It is, of course, vital that the inquest can ensure that the full truth is established.

One of the key things I want to achieve through this Adjournment debate, on behalf of Elizabeth, is to encourage the Minister, who is respected across the House, to ask for a full briefing from her officials on the full aspects of this case. It is not constrained by the sub judice rule, so she is able to get that briefing from her officials. I therefore hope that she will be fully sighted on the issues that it gives rise to.

What I can talk about at this stage is the wider regulatory landscape regarding clinicians, and specifically the role of the GMC, on which there is currently a live consultation titled, “Reforming the General Medical Council legislative council”. As the Minister will know, that consultation is open until 23 June, so this Adjournment debate is timely.

The issues at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS foundation trust raise serious wider patient safety concerns in the context of the consultation, specifically where concerns are raised but a trust does not act, where a trust does not act even after a whistleblower has raised concerns, and where other clinicians fail to intervene, and where the regulatory oversight does not kick in. It is vital, in the context of that consultation, that the GMC takes the opportunity to review expeditiously how it reforms medical practices that are problematic, and to ensure that they are not strung out over a period of many years, as I will come on to highlight.

Where shortcomings in medical practice are discovered, the GMC should act immediately to protect patients, rather than waiting for the outcome of a coroner’s process, which may take many years to conclude, during which time further harm could be caused. I hope the House will revisit the circumstances of Jack’s case once the coroner’s process has been concluded, and I hope the Minister will commit to returning to the House to make a statement at that point, so that the issues that cannot be raised today can be debated without restriction.

Alongside that issue with the GMC, I want to raise two further points. My second point relates to the GMC’s judgment, and specifically its poor judgment in relation to antisemitism. The Minister will have noticed her own Department’s response just this morning to Lord Mann’s recommendations to tackle what he describes as

“routine ostracism of Jewish people”

in the NHS—that is the description from the Government’s adviser. Indeed, Ministers quite rightly have said that all racism in the NHS is abhorrent, yet current GMC practice, to me, falls significantly below the expectations set out in Lord Mann’s report. Given that his recommendations have been welcomed and accepted by the Government in full, there must be an expectation that the consultation, and indeed reform of the GMC, will reflect that. Will Health Ministers require the GMC to change the current threshold for what it sees as a standard compatible with an NHS clinician?

Let me give a specific example that illustrates the current gap between the GMC and what I see as the Government’s response to Lord Mann’s report. Just a few weeks ago, the NHS clinician Dr Martin Whyte was seen as fit by the GMC to join the GMC specialist register—a senior role within the NHS. Yet when I was Secretary of State for Health, I reported Dr Martin Whyte to the GMC following abhorrent social media comments. While it is distressing to read them out, I think it is important for the House to hear exactly what this doctor—who has just been put on the GMC specialist register—had to say. For example, he said:

“hahaha zeig heil hahaha gas the jews hahaha just kidding but have you seen these youtube videos about the holohoax they’re pretty convincing imo”.

That is from a doctor. In another tweet, he said:

“Ahaha you thin skinned babyman. How are you still so prominent at the BBC? Did you and Tony Hall kill a prostitute together or something?”

Another tweet talked of “Jew banker goblins”—that gives a sense of the character we are dealing with.

Obviously, I had a sometimes challenging relationship with the British Medical Association during my time as Health Secretary, but interestingly even it, which Dr Whyte unsuccessfully tried to sue, said that he was someone who could never return to represent it in any elected office. The BMA found him unpalatable—but not, it seems, the GMC.

That is not an isolated case. The Campaign Against Antisemitism has said:

“Britain’s regulatory bodies are failing the Jewish community. Time and again doctors who spew antisemitic bile online and in the streets are being allowed to continue practising medicine”.

Again, that is a flavour of Lord Mann’s report from this morning.

There are other examples. I will not go through them all, but I will give just one example. Dr Rehiana Ali, a consultant neurologist who was reinstated just last year, said that the architect of the 7 October attacks was a “legend”, called for Israel to be “dismantled” and claimed that 9/11 was conducted by Mossad.

I have no doubt that such examples horrify the Minister, given her good reputation in the House, as well as Members on all Benches. But they do point to why the consultation is timely and why, in response to Lord Mann’s report, we need to see action in respect of the GMC.

The third issue that I want to highlight regards the wider poor performance of the GMC. This is an organisation that spends north of £100 million on staff costs—it has got more than 1,700 staff—yet doctors’ fitness to practise hearings are taking, on average, almost two years to process, with a recent increase in cases open for three years or more. That time matters because the NHS must continue to pay suspended doctors in full until they are formally found to be guilty of misconduct or incompetence. It just adds to the grievance that families feel when they see a doctor being paid for years even though there are very serious concerns regarding their fitness to practise—never mind the fact that if they do continue to practise during that time, there may be ongoing risk to patients.

Further, in October last year it came to light that the GMC had allowed doctors with restrictions regarding their overseas practice to practise without restrictions here, which clearly can put patients at risk. It is notable that even the Medical Defence Union has called for new legislation so that the GMC can overhaul its processes. Will the Minister use the Health Bill as an opportunity to table amendments for that? If not, which legislation will she use to address some of these issues regarding the GMC?

In a spirit of balance, when dealing with regulatory bodies I want to be clear about the important distinction to draw between the sort of cases I have highlighted and those of medics who have made a genuine mistake—often in a highly pressured environment—where indeed we want to encourage a culture of openness and learning. Indeed, I think back to the 2011 case of Dr Bawa-Garba, where I think a lot of the backlash to that and concerns of the wider profession were about the sense that clinical reflections made in good faith as part of learning were being used in legal proceedings, as well as the extent to which a trainee was possibly being scapegoated.

I hope the House can see the marked distinction between the grave cases that I have highlighted today and the case of a clinician who, in the heat of a high pressure situation, made a genuine mistake and where the case is addressed in a spirit of openness and transparency. I am sure the Minister can draw that distinction.

I hope that I am correct in my understanding that Ministers are minded to give the Professional Standards Authority greater powers, including to ensure that it has the information necessary to make decisions on exercising its right to appeal fitness to practise decisions, and to enable a more agile approach to regulatory performance monitoring. If the Minister confirms that in her response, I would welcome that.

How we protect patients better is a long-running issue. I know a number of my predecessors as Secretary of State for Health were focused on this—indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) worked extensively on patient safety when I was his deputy in the Department. For my part, I focused on giving families a stronger voice in the NHS—through Martha’s rule, for example, and increasing data transparency. It is clear from the Government’s response this morning that the current ministerial team is also focused sincerely on how to enhance patient safety, but that does require a regulator that is fit for purpose, and there are significant concerns about the GMC. I hope that the Minister will use legislation before the House, alongside the current consultation, to address some of the concerns I have raised today.