Doctors and patients are being asked what steps doctors should take when faced with a conflict between their management responsibilities and their duty to patients as one of a series of questions being asked in a consultation on the revised draft of the GMC’s guidance on workplace issues faced by doctors.
The GMC has suggested a number of updates to its guidance, including a duty for doctors to be open and honest with patients about how decisions are made when resources are limited. The consultation asks for views on a variety of issues, including commissioning services, dealing with conflicts of interest, team-working and performance management. Guidance on raising and acting on concerns about patient safety has also been brought together for the first time in this new draft. The consultation also asks what more the GMC can do to encourage doctors to speak up about anything that compromises the safety of patients. The guidance also emphasises the duty of doctors to take part in appraisals, ahead of the start of revalidation next year. It sets out the duties of doctors with supervisory responsibilities to ensure they are giving their colleagues sufficient time to prepare for appraisals or performance reviews and to undertake training and development. The current guidance, Management for Doctors, was last updated in 2005. The new guidance is provisionally titled Good Management Practice: guidance for all doctors. The consultation is open until 3 June 2011.
