A GMC working group is to investigate a rise in the duration of fitness-to-practise hearings and offer advice on how the process could be improved.
The move follows warnings from medico-legal experts that lengthier hearings are causing doctors greater financial and psychological stress.
Dr Michael Devlin, head of medical advisory services at the Medical Defence Union, said there was ‘no doubt’ cases had become longer and more complex in the past decade.
The number of heads of charge - specific claims made against a doctor - proposed by the GMC in an average case had risen sharply, he said.
‘In the past, 10 to 15 heads of charge might have been the average. [Now] it is not unusual to have in excess of 50 heads of charge,’ Dr Devlin said.
Read more in Healthcare Republic.
Tags: fitness to practise, GMC
