GMC as complainants

The request was partially successful.

Dear General Medical Council,

The GMC as complainants. Please can you tell me, per year for the last 5 years, for how many FTP investigations, the GMC were complainants or part-self-complainants in complaints. These are FTP complaints the GMC are/were investigating and then may go on to act as prosecutor/judge/jury/executioner.

To help your counting, I count as one for this year. I would like a response/non-response within 20 working days so I have ample time to use in legal processes.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Ali
Former Elected Doctors Representative

FOI, General Medical Council

Thank you for getting in touch. Please note this is an automated email.

We’ll get back to you as soon as we can with a further acknowledgement.
You’ll usually hear from us on the next working day, but it might take a
little longer during busy periods.

In the meantime, if you want any further information about the GMC, please
visit our website.

Thank you

Information Access team

General Medical Council

Email: [GMC request email]

FOI, General Medical Council

Dear Dr Ali

Your information request – IR1-3236320551

Thank you for your email received on 10 October 2021.

How we will consider your request

You’ve asked that we consider your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). The FOIA gives us 20 working days to respond, but we’ll come back to you as soon as we can.

Who to contact

Mark Ellen will be handling your request. If you have any questions, you can email him at [email address]

Yours sincerely

Julian Graves
Information Access Manager
Email: [email address]
Telephone: 0161 923 6351

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Dear FOI Mr Graves and Mr Ellen,

RE: The GMC as FTP complainants

Thank you for your email 14th October, as par your email as it is 20 working days and the information has not been provided within/sooner to this period. I request an update and internal review escalation.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Ali

FOI, General Medical Council

1 Attachment

Dear Dr Ali

Thank you for your email dated 8 November 2021.

We will be considering your email under our comments and complaints
procedure. This sets a target response time of 20 working days. We will
endeavour to respond to you within this timeframe.

 

Julian Graves will be handling your request. If you have any questions,
you can call him on 0161 923 6351 or email him at
[1][email address].

 

Kind regards,

 

Charlotte Adams
Information Access Team Assistant
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street, Manchester M3 3AW

 

Email: [2][email address]

Website: [3]www.gmc-uk.org

Telephone: 0161 240 8125

 

Working hours: 8am to 2.30pm, Monday to Friday

 

[4][IMG]

 

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Dear FOI,

Thank you for your email in response to my request for internal review as by law, you should normally have responded promptly and by 5 November 2021 despite understanding habitually your organisation will fail. Can you clarify if the comments and complaints procedure, is the outcome of the internal review or the mechanism in which you conduct an internal review.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Ali

FOI, General Medical Council

Good afternoon Dr Ali,

Thank you for your email.

I can confirm that the comments and complaints procedure is the mechanism in which we conduct an internal review.

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Kind regards,

Charlotte Adams
Information Access Team Assistant
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street, Manchester M3 3AW

Email: [email address]
Website: www.gmc-uk.org
Telephone: 0161 240 8125

Working hours: 8am to 2.30pm, Monday to Friday

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Dear GMC FOI,

Your comments and complaints procedure requires a response within 10working days, the ICO guidance is a prompt response within 20 working days. As expected, their has been a habitual failure. This email is a prompt to provide the original information sought, in relation to how many FTP investigations are the GMC complainants or part-self-complainants per year for the last 5 years.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Ali
Former Elected Doctors Representative

Julian Graves, General Medical Council

2 Attachments

Dear Dr Ali

 

Further to your email below, my response relates to your request as
follows:

 

Please can you tell me, per year for the last 5 years, for how many FTP
investigations, the GMC were complainants or part-self-complainants in
complaints. These are FTP complaints the GMC are/were investigating and
then may go on to act as prosecutor/judge/jury/executioner.

 

 

Having reviewed this matter I can see that the attached response from Mr
Ellen sent on 4 November 2021 was designed as a response to this
particular request (our ref: IR1-3236320551) and a different request (our
ref: IR1-3236344161).

 

I’m aware that the other request (IR1-3236344161) is currently with me in
respect of your request for an internal review.

 

If you are dissatisfied with Mr Ellen’s response on this request (our ref:
IR1-3236320551) please do respond to this email setting out your concerns
and we’ll consider those.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Julian Graves

 

 

Julian Graves

Information Access Manager

General Medical Council

3 Hardman Street

Manchester M3 3AW

 

Tel. no: 0161 923 6351

Email: [1][email address]

 

 

 

 

 

From: FOI
Sent: 12 November 2021 10:16
To: S. Ali <[FOI #798807 email]>
Subject: RE: Internal review of Freedom of Information request - GMC as
complainants

 

Dear Dr Ali

Thank you for your email dated 8 November 2021.

We will be considering your email under our comments and complaints
procedure. This sets a target response time of 20 working days. We will
endeavour to respond to you within this timeframe.

 

Julian Graves will be handling your request. If you have any questions,
you can call him on 0161 923 6351 or email him at
[2][email address].

 

Kind regards,

 

Charlotte Adams
Information Access Team Assistant
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street, Manchester M3 3AW

 

Email: [3][email address]

Website: [4]www.gmc-uk.org

Telephone: 0161 240 8125

 

Working hours: 8am to 2.30pm, Monday to Friday

 

[5][IMG]

 

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Dear General Medical Council and Mr Greaves,

Thank you for your emails. I would point out this is not at all a satisfactory response to internal review. Given time elapsed and previous bad practices not to provide information/do work as a response/excuse, to the ICO (section 50 FOI) which appears is occurring again, please escalate this on to the person who conducts the next stage of your complaints process / FOI Internal reviews.

You do point out references (ref: IR1-3236320551 ref: IR1-3236344161) with lazy practice of your colleagues, it was unclear the tangential response was an attempt at a response. I am sorry for whatever reason, my try again message was not applied to this request as it was to the other reference. Nonetheless, the SOMEP 2020 tables you/your colleagues point out do not answer this FOI request (I notice the main 2020 document is now no longer available on your website). Given your other email, I thought you had re-read the actual contents of SOMEP 2020 tables. It may help to also read the original FOI request again and consider from all the FTP complaints and investigations conducted by the GMC, only those where the GMC are the complainants (not the public, not other doctors, not employers, not the police but just the GMC as self-complaints for FTP). The SOMEP tables has some overlap with GMC media scanning/Gestapo actions of your colleagues but this and other rows, do not fully cover only complaints where the complainer is the GMC. Or to put it another way, where the GMC is the self-complainant to itself. Thus I am dissatisfied as the information sought has simply not been provided. Further internal review responses appear to be trying to create further deliberate delay.

Pre-emptively as the majority of the GMC are non-medics and do not work on the NHS front lines, plus I work weekends, nights, almost every day for the last two years of the pandemic and even attending the GMC at the weekends, so it is clear if some of your colleagues can work weekends I see no reason why your department which is woeful behind with almost all deadlines, cannot do the same. Maybe spend less of our money on fancy glass towers and more on actual work?

Please can you tell me, per year for the last 5 years, for how many FTP investigations, the GMC were complainants or part-self-complainants.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/g... Although you may give excuses, the original information sought despite not being timely, would be appreciated.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Ali

Julian Graves, General Medical Council

1 Attachment

Dear Dr Ali

Further to your email of 17 December 2021 please find attached my response.

Yours sincerely

Julian Graves

Julian Graves
Information Access Manager
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street
Manchester M3 3AW

Tel. no: 0161 923 6351
Email: [email address]

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Dear Julian Graves,

Thank you for your letter. This is probably the best I will get. I have requested information for the last 5 years (2017-2021) and you have directed me to related inaccurate and questionable data for 2012-2019, where the niggles led to my request. There are three years overlap and no new information requested is provided. Obviously in 2-5 years time, the information may be available despite being inaccurate.

From the information provided in SOMEP (published 2020) tables, it appears given the overlap of sources with cases, that not all of those related to the GMC as complainant are recorded, along with the Police section too. In contrast all of those from public and employers appear correct. For anyone looking at the percentages they are actually done per category/sanction hence the numbers look wrong but has been done excel, despite removing formulas to make error-checking harder. However, the inputted data still actually appears fiddled and not consistent when the tables are cross-referenced with each other.

My request was in the hope this would be done afresh rather than re-hashed and compounded. Table 18 show over 8 years , the GMC have investigated 961/16470 of their own complaints which is equivalent to about 6% of objective 'outcome' numbers over time, this still appears under-reported.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Ali

S. Ali left an annotation ()

Please note although there is a refusal by the GMC to provide information requested. Essentially no work has been done.

However, there is existing similar-ish information on their website for different dates the GMC provide a links for, hence I have given the GMC some credit and marked this request as as partially successful.

S. Ali left an annotation ()

The public interest argument in this thread are that:

This is a lawful request under FOIA for information in the Public Interest

Given Lord Coke’s 1628 judgement that "No man can be judge in his own case" a response to this request would further evidence the GMC being unfit for purpose; it would show the extent the GMC has been failing to follow, due process by prosecuting its own complaints. Please note this is actually a persistently significant and serious extension of the GMC Gestapo action, the GMC evidences on its website.

Jane Roberts (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

The GMC seem to be in some difficulty over this request. It is clear they decline to provide the information requested for very spurious reasons.

In essence, the GMC is above the law and untouchable. It is biased, fails to be impartial or independent. There is a failure to comply with Article 6 Human Rights Act 1998, the Right to a Fair Hearing. This legislation not only covers criminal proceedings in the courts but civil hearings which are of a judicial nature. I would argue that the GMC investigations and hearings fall within the last category.

There is a desperate need for the registration and conduct of doctors to be reformed. This should be undertaken by a truly independent body with no links to the medical profession, or Freemasonry.