Minister backs GMC and self-regulation.(Brief Article)

The medical profession will continue to regulate itself, the government has confirmed, despite concerns raised by the Shipman Inquiry.

The Shipman Inquiry, chaired by Dame Janet Smith, was concerned that self-regulation of doctors meant that the GMC could not give patient protection the priority it deserved (GP, 17 December 2004). It called for the GMC to be made accountable to parliament and for the fitness to practise (FTP) adjudications to be made an independent body.

But health minister John Hutton told the BMA's Medical Students Committee annual meeting at Keele University in Staffordshire last week: 'The shutter will not come down on self-regulation in …