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Fitness to practise concerns and outcomes in UK emergency medicine doctors 2020–2024

emermed · 2026-05-27 · canonical JSON source

1 visible annotations · policy: published · automated confidence ≥ 75.00%

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Emergency medicine (EM) is increasingly delivered under conditions of crowding, exit block and care in non-traditional clinical spaces, often described as ‘corridor care’.1 Therefore it is plausible that clinicians fear system-driven deviations from ideal care could expose them to referral to the General Medical Council (GMC). The GMC is the UK regulator for doctors. Concerns may be raised by the public or professionals and can be closed at triage, returned to local employers or escalated for investigation. Outcomes range from no action to erasure from the medical register. Investigations that proceed may culminate in a fitness to practise (FtP) hearing, conducted by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS). Despite increasing attention around ‘corridor care’, there is limited evidence examining FtP outcomes for EM specialists. GMC register data indicate approximately 4320 doctors on the EM specialist register and 208 on the Paediatric Emergency Medicine register.2 This retrospective review of FtP referrals aimed to describe the volume, characteristics and outcomes of GMC concerns relating to UK EM specialists between 2020 and 2024. It sought to examine the nature of cases progressing to MPTS hearings and why they did.