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  Regional Equality & Diversity Partnership  

Seeking Views on Equality Scheme

Date: 16/8/2010
Summary: The General Medical Council is looking for views on its equality and diversity proposals to improve patient care.

Patients, doctors and the organisations that represent them are being invited by the General Medical Council to provide comments on the three-year plan for its Equality Scheme.

The Equality Scheme aims to ensure that the GMC's procedures are fair, objective, transparent and free from discrimination, and sets out proposals to improve the experiences of diverse groups of patients and doctors and remove barriers that some groups encounter.

The online consultation on the Equality Scheme is open now until mid-October.

Niall Dickson, Chief Executive of the GMC, said: "Our role is to protect patients by regulating doctors and improving medical practice, so we have a major part to play in ensuring that both patients and doctors are treated fairly. It's crucial that we do what we can to improve the standards of care for everybody and use our influence to reduce inequalities.

"Our Equality Scheme defines our aims to value equality and diversity and to make sure our services work well for everyone. We want to hear as many views as possible to help us shape our plans to achieve this," he added.

The GMC has identified four key areas in its draft Equality Scheme:

  • 1. Providing accessible information and services
  • 2. Helping doctors to provide high-quality care
  • 3. Being a fair regulator
  • 4. Using its influence to create positive change.

One priority identified by the GMC is improving the quality of care that disabled people receive from their doctors. In particular, the GMC is planning to develop materials to raise doctors' awareness of the needs and experiences of patients with learning difficulties.

The Equality Scheme also includes a proposal to help doctors who qualified overseas to improve their understanding of UK medical standards and ethics.

The GMC has written to over 250 organisations inviting them to contribute to the consultation.

Full details of the consultation are available here

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