We pay the GMC. The GMC spends it
The Times featured an interesting issue about the longest running trial in GMC history. Andrew Wakefield is the one million dollar man.
"The cost of disciplinary action against the researchers who sparked a health scare over the MMR vaccine is likely to exceed £1million, The Times has learnt.The General Medical Council (GMC), the medical regulator, is now looking to overhaul its disciplinary procedures to reduce mounting costs as the case against Dr Andrew Wakefield, the longest running in the council's history, reconvenes today.
Dr Wakefield and two colleagues face charges of serious professional misconduct over their research, which claimed a link between autism in children and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).
The GMC has refused to estimate the exact cost of the hearing but analysis of the basic fees for the five members of a fitness-to-practise panel — each earning £300 a day — plus £500 a day for a legal assessor, suggests that it will cost more than £240,000.
With the expense of employing Sally Smith, an experienced QC, to prosecute the case for the GMC, as well as QCs and legal teams for each of the three doctors, the total cost is likely to run into at least seven figures, a GMC source confirmed.
Paul Philip, the GMC's director of standards, said that there had been a number of long-running cases in recent years but these remained an exception. He said that the average length of a GMC fitness-to-practise hearing had also risen in the last two years, due to an increasingly complex caseload and complaints about rogue or incompetant doctors.
“Overall the length of hearings have increased, from 4.7 days in 2006 to 6.7 days in 2008,” he said, adding that longer hearings required more doctors and lay members to sit on an adjudicating panel.
