College reaction to Dr Arora case

The College has issued the following statement in reaction to the GMC ruling on Dr Manjula Arora.

“We are deeply concerned about Dr Arora’s case and whilst we welcome the decision by the GMC to review the ruling, we will be asking for answers as to why the case was allowed to get through their screening processes and end in a Fitness to Practise Hearing and receiving a sanction. 

“GPs are working in an increasingly punitive and litigious environment and any referral to the GMC causes enormous stress and distress for the doctor being investigated, their colleagues and families.  As well as being devastating for Dr Arora, cases such as this only make it harder to retain existing GPs and persuade new ones to go into general practice, and particularly to work in out of hours.

“GPs and their teams are working under greater pressures than ever before. We have a severe shortage of GPs at the same time as patient demand and complexity is increasing, and we need much greater support – including better IT and infrastructure – to do our jobs properly and care for patients safely, without it adversely impacting our own health. Therefore, it seems incomprehensible to remove a doctor with, to our knowledge, an otherwise impeccable track record from frontline patient care, even for a short period of time.

“The College has raised concerns with the Care Quality Commission about the disproportionate impact of its inspection regime on doctors from minority ethnic backgrounds, and we will continue our work to ensure all regulators actively avoid perceptions of discrimination. 

“We have also repeatedly highlighted the numerous IT issues that are affecting GPs’ ability to do their jobs and called on the Government to address this.”

Further information

RCGP Press office: 020 3188 7659

press@rcgp.org.uk

Notes to editor

The Royal College of General Practitioners is a network of more than 52,000 family doctors working to improve care for patients. We work to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general medical practice and act as the voice of GPs on education, training, research and clinical standards.