of the GMC ± published a critique,APatient Voice at the GMC,ofthe Council's
style, operation and the effect of some of its decisions in professional disciplinary
cases [7], generating a very defensive response from the Council inThe Lancet.The
years that followed have seen further complaints, serious expressions of dis-
satisfaction and evidence of a much greater willingness on the part of the public to
challenge and question. These have culminated, during 1999±2000, in outbursts
of anger over the doctors from the Bristol Childrens Hospital who became the
subject of a belated and much publicised hearing, and the case of Dr Harold
Shipman ± a General Practitioner working in a single practitioner practice ± who
was convicted for the murder of a number of his patients. These are simply the
most widely publicised examples of cases that have generated much public
disquiet.
3.3.2 The UKCC subject to challenge
Expressed dissatisfaction with the UKCC has not been as great as that on record
about the GMC. It did, however, reach a crescendo during the latter part of the
1990s in response to several remarkably perverse decisions by the PCC to restore
to the register some persons who had previously been removed for extremely
serious criminal offences involving vulnerable patients. One of these decisions, in
acase concerning a convicted rapist, was taken to the courts by the Royal College
of Nursing for judicial review, and the decision overturned.
There was nothing in the law that prevented the committee members from
making these decisions, but equally nothing that required them to decide as they
did. The law simply requires them to consider any application for restoration and,
after due consideration, to decide to accept it or reject it. The decision lies with the
members serving on the day. Would they have made the decisions they did if they
were required to state their reasons in public, or would the discipline of having to
articulate their reasons mean their decisions would have been different?
In the aftermath of these much publicised and criticised decisions the new
Government chose in August 1997 to bring forward the periodic review of the
operation of the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1979 .as amended by
the 1992 Act and consolidated in the 1997 Act) and commissioned a firm of
management consultants to undertake this task. The previous review, by other
management consultants conducted in a very short time in 1991, had led to the
amendments contained in the 1992 Act.
The consultants engaged were J.M. Consulting Ltd who, at the time, had recently
completed a comparable review of the much older legislation concerning the
Council for the Professions Supplementary to Medicine. Given that fact, and
noting the turbulence surrounding the General Medical Council at the time and
indications from Government that it was minded to legislate in that direction as
well, it has to be regarded as extraordinary that neither the J.M. Consulting report
nor the Government's response to it in February 1999 [8], contained any indica-
tion that the fundamental principle of the regulatory bodies maintaining a majority
membership from within the profession regulated might be open to challenge. J.M.
Consulting recommend a new Nursing and Midwifery Council with between 24
The Professional Dimension 37