Blog: Responding and Adapting to Patient and Doctor View
As the Medical Council revises and develops its regulatory processes, we encourage appropriate and meaningful engagement from patients and doctors. Last year, we held a series of focus groups. We observed strong convergence between doctor and patient views of the regulatory complaints process, from which distinct themes emerged.
Giving a voice to our stakeholders – doctors and patients – was crucial to help ensure that a new complaints model would foster transparency and garner support for implementation. A new complaints model would enable the identification of key concerns, needs, and opportunities for improvement, thus enhancing its effectiveness and acceptance.
Thematic analysis defined the nature of the desired experience for patients and doctors, setting out a ‘good’ experience. This was centred around principles that include transparency, timeliness, empathetic communication, and accountability, which informed key recommendations.
The active collaboration of patients and doctors has resulted in a number of their recommendations being developed and implemented to revise and improve the complaints process. In November 2024, we launched CAREhub; an independent, confidential service operated by Lyra Health International. The service provides mental health and wellbeing support to medical students, doctors, and members of the public who are engaging with the Medical Council’s regulatory processes.
Both doctors and patients also called for improved transparency around Medical Council processes, including Fitness to Practise inquiries and data on complaints that proceed to Preliminary Proceedings Committee and Fitness to Practise. We are currently preparing to report on this data and ensure it is available and published on our website.
Overall, engaging with patients and doctors has been invaluable to creating a pathway to good practice and contributing to improvements in the Medical Council’s complaints process.
Read more or download the Medical Council's report, "Doctor & Patient views on reforming the Complaints Model".