The British Medical Association is formally calling on the government to create a new medical register due to regulatory issues with the General Medical Council.
Tensions are rising in the UK, with the British Medical Association having announced a call for a new medical regulator that would deal exclusively with doctors.
It has come amid “prolonged and repeated” concerns with the General Medical Council over numerous regulation errors that have garnered mistrust from the BMA.
A major point of concern from British doctors was the GMC’s decision to regulate physician and anaesthesia associates alongside doctors.
This was described by the BMA as a “blurring of the professional boundaries between the two”.
Dissatisfaction with the way PA regulation has been handled in the UK has been a major sticking point in attempts to introduce the role in Australia.
@CroakeyNews @hayleygleeson @Flinty_01 please look into the Physician Associate debacle in the UK and report on it, because @TheRACP seems mostly unaware of the Pandora’s box they’re opening up.
— Miel (@Mielgray) June 17, 2025
Or you could look at the almighty mess the UK has made of replacing trained healthcare workers with PAs, costing some patients' lives, decide "Let's not do this", protect HCWs and patients from airborne Covid infections — and stem the loss of trained doctors to chronic illness.
— PenScribbler (@ScribblerPen) June 17, 2025
Surveys unveiled at the BMA’s annual representative meeting indicated that 82% of respondents supported the creation of a new regulator, with only 6% against the call.
Around 16% of respondents said they had confidence in the GMC in carrying out its primary function, whereas 61% said they did not.
“The GMC’s approach to regulating physician associates has led to incessant and unsafe blurring of professional boundaries that threaten the very foundations of practising medicine, what it means to be a doctor,” BMA council chair Professor Phillip Banfield said.
“More than 150 years ago the BMA, led by our founder Sir Charles Hastings, campaigned for the creation of a medical regulator that could protect the public.
“Today we have to unearth the old battles, we have to fight for the soul of our profession and renew our calls for a regulator, one unburdened by the abject failure of what the GMC has become.
“The fight for the soul of our profession is here and now.”
This call for a new regulator has not come without buildup, with the BMA having previously passed numerous motions of no confidence in the regulator.
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In the same address to the BMA, Professor Banfield also announced the launch of a BMA register for doctors to sign in response of a doctor-exclusive regulator.
“Clueless about how medicine is delivered,” Professor Banfield said of the GMC’s current management.
“Condescending of the working lives of doctors, contemptuous of the profession’s legitimate safety concerns.”
The proposed new medical regulator, as outlined by the BMA, would have a clear statutory duty to protect the public as opposed to that being an overarching objective.
The strict doctor-exclusive regulation was also highlighted as a way to provide the public with a clear distinction between doctors and other professions under GMC regulation.
