Doctors’ duty to declare their interests should be enforced, says GMC

The General Medical Council has backed a call to enforce a doctor’s duty to declare their interests and in a form that can be easily accessed by patients.

But questions remain over whether these interests should be linked to the GMC register, a move the council doesn’t favour. The government is also believed to want a scheme managed locally by employers, as well as one that includes all healthcare staff and not just doctors.

The GMC support for a mandatory register came in a parliamentary meeting last week hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group First Do No Harm and The BMJ. Colin Melville, director of education and standards at the GMC, said the practice of registering interests should be enforceable “so that the public can trust it is credible. It can’t be right that patients are not made aware of any real or potential conflicts of interests.”

The GMC already requires doctors to declare conflicts of interest to their patients and to employers, although Melville acknowledged this was a grey area, adding that some doctors didn’t …