Dear General Medical Council FOI/information directorate,

Please can you process the following request within 20 working days. If you plan to refuse the request, please can it be stated within 20 working days with a copy of the public interest test, rather than having to request an internal appeal which only illustrates bad non-transparent governance practice.

For the last two years (2020, 2021) please can you highlight for MPTS/GMC action against doctors with a criminal conviction, where there is a sanction of GMC suspension:
1. The number of doctors (no names) and the mean and median length of criminal suspension by any court
2. The number of doctors (no names) and the mean and median length of GMC sanction of registration suspension
3. You may wish to add inter-quartile ranges but this is not necessary
4. The number of months (rounded by date/actual time) a corresponding GMC suspension (please consider adding a month to cover the interim period before a suspension becomes effective) either undercovers or supersedes the suspension by the court. This may be provided as a list of numbers or table format, whichever is easiest for you.

I look forward to a response.
Yours sincerely,

Dr Ali

Dear General Medical Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews. I am writing to request an internal review of General Medical Council's handling of my FOI request 'GMC Criminal Suspensions'.

Thank you for the response, bad practice refusal was expected. I would highlight the date of request 28 December 2021. You are aware of legal action and your department appears to have been given duties to be as obstructive as possible. The Section 14(1) refusal appears to be a generic response to my requests which, actually does, as a trend, appear personal to me. There is also the background of vexatious pre-actions and deceit by the GMC barrister last year e.g. falsified GMC accusations of being arrested by the Police. As this is further related GMC bad practice, I will forward this refusal to the High Court.

This information is/was needed to highlight current practices, regardless of good or bad. To mitigate against information being misused, there was an option for provision of inter-quartile ranges. As you know, refusal will be used in a court of law against the GMC. Your GMC legal colleagues will receive a bundle copy next week, containing your departments related obstructive actions. Thank you.

ICO guidance states that Section 14(1) is applied because of the nature of the request rather than the consequences of releasing the requested information (see https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...). If this is the case, I highlight a Court of Appeal case https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ... that a request may not be vexatious if "the information sought would be of value to the requester or to the public or any section of the public". Understanding transparently how the GMC deals with criminal convictions and suspended sentences compared to that of the court, would be of value to the public.

Given trends, I would suggest you become acquainted with https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio... Misuse, as it appears the case here, with obstruction is not appropriate when I have a valid legal reason to make this request. Given the Medical Act 1983 (as amended), I would highlight the related refusal only damages reputation of your organisation. Specifically, the GMC have a statutory duty to to protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and well-being of the public - including openly demonstrating how this is done. The GMC should also promote and maintain public confidence in the medical profession, provision of this information would be appropriate but without awkwardness. It is appropriate to escalate this to your director, get advice from a real doctor or escalate to your CEO to consider bad information practice by the GMC.

I am aware of the shoot the messenger policy and I will resist, as a good doctor should.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/g...

Yours faithfully,

Dr Ali

Dear Mr Julian Graves, GMC Information Access Manager

RE: IR1-3326156081, https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/g...

Thank you for your response 14 March 2022 in relation to my Christmas time request 28 December 2022. You continue to refuse by misusing Section 14(1) of the FOIA, despite material related live action in the High Court of Justice (England) which by its very nature, means this request cannot be vexatious.

I understand you would like to me to make my requests privately and not use information gathered, against the charitable-status GMC organisation whose salaries (some grotesque) are funded by non-negotiable levies/fees doctors like me, must pay. Such action is not in line with the Duty of Candour, although it allows a non-transparent unfit-for-purpose GMC to continue discrimination and bad practices which is also not in keeping with Good Medical Practice. I am accountable for my actions including remarks, I apologies if you find them disparaging and truthful. I will have to decline your request and continue the needful, otherwise this could be yet another non-medical FtP complaint from the GMC against me which would probably use extracted-part sentences and characteristic-GMC-deceit to create a case, fairly/unfairly (perspective of the beholder). The information is clearly needed and would be provided by any good and proper, fit for purpose organisation. There are also several legal duties placed upon the GMC to disclose which you have failed to address in your response.

I do need the information and feel, it would be the action of a good doctor to share the information openly and transparently, including with the public.

The whatdotheyknow.com website is not at all a platform to raise concerns, I have already done that through proper-channel whistleblowing for which I am receiving the consequences of my action propped up by the GMC and multiple actions and double-jeopardy actions against me, which has led to me seeking knowledge and information for a fair trial. The GMC are aware I have clearly not gone into any detail about HEE-WM and GMC whistleblowing or the numerous inappropriate-systemically-covered-up deaths on this platform. This platform is to gather and importantly, openly share information publicly in the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Your views although representative of the GMC as a non-medical manager, does damage the public perception and reputation of the GMC. I have been open about conflicts of interests as is the professional burden placed upon me.

Provision of FOIA information on this platform, such as the Rule 12 request, which your colleague was involved with, is helpful and clearly not vexatious. Although it does demonstrate the habitual slowness/failures of your directorate. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/g... which I have also complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office about as the GMC will only give lip-service rather than address the problems. GMC vexatious adversarial and inflexible refusals leads to circumstances such as this which your GMC legal team whom have been instructed to contact you, may explain.

You are aware of the public Interest test in this request and appear to Use Rule 14(b) inappropriately but expectedly. I am aware you have disdain of my intelligence and insight, maybe you should speak to your legal colleagues about smoke and mirrors, as they so love. Given circumstances and also your refusal to escalate, it seems I will have to further highlight more, bad GMC practices to the High Court, with this request, and your obvious conflict of interest, given submissions already in court. Then if your legal department has not highlighted the errors of your ways and letters (pleural, as above) that has led to significant expense, including my time, I will continue this and other requests after considering decisions by the Information Commissioner’s Office and MPT case directions. The information will still be needed and is still in the Public-interest. It is not fair your FtP department takes significant time to investigate, often going into years if you are Black or Asian, but I might as well use the expected unreasonable excessive time to obtain information needed, as even your adversarial slow departments will, as has been the case, refuse to provide documents/complaints and evidence in a timely manner for another MPTS/GMC tribunal.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Ali
#BlackLivesMatter