GMC admits it needs to do more to reduce racial inequalities

The General Medical Council (GMC) has achieved marginal improvements against its targets to reduce racial inequalities, it said in an annual update on the programme.

However, BAME doctor representatives as well as the GMC itself said the progress was not sufficient against the targets which the regulator had set itself last year.

These included stopping disproportionate complaints from employers about ethnic minority doctors by 2026, and getting rid of disadvantage and discrimination in medical education and training by 2031.

According to the update, the gap between employer referral rates for ethnic minority doctors and international medical graduates, compared to white doctors, has marginally reduced.

The report also acknowledged the judgment by an employment tribunal in June last year, which found that the GMC had discriminated against a doctor based on his race.

Reading Employment Tribunal upheld a complaint that Dr Omer Karim, who previously worked as a consultant urologist in Slough, had been discriminated against during an investigation by the GMC, after the body dismissed charges against a white doctor accused of the same conduct. 

The GMC has appealed the verdict but is still waiting for the appeal to be heard.

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Source: Pulse, 10 March 2022