Doctors reported by their families for mental health concerns

The request was refused by General Medical Council.

Dear General Medical Council,

I would like to know the number of doctors that are referred to the GMC by their immediate family because of concerns about their mental health.
I would also like to know how many of these cases are referred for a medical assessment by two independent psychiatrists as per the information on the GMC website.

Yours faithfully,

Kerry Walker

FOI, General Medical Council

Thank you for getting in touch.

 

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]

Telephone: 0161 923 6365

Working with doctors Working for patients

The General Medical Council helps to protect patients and improve medical
education and practice in the UK by setting standards for students and
doctors. We support them in achieving (and exceeding) those standards, and
take action when they are not met.

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FOI, General Medical Council

Dear Ms Walker

Your information request – F16/8033/ME 

Thank you for your email dated 22 March 2016 asking for information about
complaints about doctors regarding their health.

How we will consider your request 

We’re going to look at 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 call him on 0161 923 6347 or email him at [1][email address]. 

Yours sincerely 

Miss Sadie Jones

Information Assistant

[2][email address]

0161 250 6889

 

General Medical Council

3 Hardman Street

Manchester

M3 3AW

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Mark Ellen (0161 923 6347), General Medical Council

Dear Ms Walker

Reference: IAT/ME/F16/8033. Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

Thank you for your e-mail of 22 March 2016.

Our fitness to practise material is held on an electronic case management system but information as to whether a complainant is an immediate member of the doctor’s family is not held in a way that can be searched electronically. The only way to try to answer your question would be to manually drill down into each fitness to practise case. Even that method would be unlikely to yield an accurate answer as it is possible that a complaint/referral was made by a family member of the doctor but they had not declared that connection when making the complaint/referral.

Under the FOIA there’s an exemption for requests where it would cost the public authority more than £450 (the 'appropriate limit') to process - equivalent to two and half day’s work. To estimate the cost we can take into account determining, locating, retrieving and extracting the information requested. In 2014 we investigated 2750 fitness to practise cases. I estimate that it would take 15 minutes to search each case to try to determine whether there’s a family connection between the complainant and the doctor who is the subject of the complaint.

Based on my estimate above it would take some 700 hours to retrieve this information. At an hourly rate of £25 per hour (which is set by the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004) this would cost us some £17500. Your request would therefore cost us significantly in excess of the appropriate limit to process.

Therefore, the exemption which we believe applies is at section 12 of the FOIA. This states that we are not required comply with a request if we estimate that the cost of doing so would exceed the appropriate limit.

I'm sorry I can't provide the information you requested. You can appeal against my decision (to apply section 12 of the FOIA) to Julian Graves, Information Access Manager. If you wish to appeal please set out your reasons and write to him at [email address]. If such an appeal were unsuccessful you have a further right of appeal to the Information Commissioner, the regulator of the FOIA. Julian will provide more details about this further right of appeal if applicable.

Yours sincerely

Mark Ellen
Information Access Team
General Medical Council
3 Hardman Street
Manchester M3 3AW
Direct Line: 0161 923 6347

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