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How to complain about a doctor

The General Medical Council (GMC) is the body that regulates doctors. This is how to raise a concern about one.

Use this route if

Your concern is about a doctor, and it is serious: for example poor clinical care, a decision that put your relative at risk, dishonesty, or a doctor who behaved in a way that calls their fitness to practise into question.

The GMC looks at whether a doctor is safe to keep practising. It does not settle individual disputes about treatment, and it cannot award you money. If your concern is really about how the hospital as a whole behaved, the SPSO is the better route, and you can use both.

Step by step

1. Gather the basic facts. The doctor's name (and their GMC reference number if you have it), what happened, and the dates.
2. Open the online form. Go to gmc-uk.org/concerns/raise-a-concern. If you would prefer a paper form or some help, call 0161 923 6602.
3. Describe the concern in plain words. You do not need legal or medical language. Say what happened, when, and why it worries you.
4. Attach anything that helps. Copies of letters, records, or the names of anyone else who was there.
5. Send it. The GMC's support service can talk you through what happens next.

What to include

• The doctor's name, and GMC number if known
• What happened and the dates it happened
• Why you are concerned
• Copies of any supporting papers
• Names of any witnesses

What it costs

Nothing. Raising a concern with the GMC is free.

Is there a time limit?

There is no strict deadline, but if the events happened more than five years ago the GMC will ask you to explain why you could not raise it sooner. So do not delay if you can help it.

What can happen

After looking into it, the GMC may take no action, or it may give the doctor a warning, set conditions on how they practise, suspend them, or remove them from the register so they can no longer work as a doctor.

End-of-life care: useful to know

If your concern is about decisions near the end of your relative's life, the GMC's own guidance, Treatment and care towards the end of life, sets standards that doctors are expected to follow. In particular it says doctors must:

• start from a presumption in favour of prolonging life (paragraph 7);
• presume that an adult patient has the capacity to make their own decisions (paragraph 8);
• respect that a patient who has capacity is the one who decides between the treatment options, and may refuse treatment, even for reasons that seem irrational or for no reason at all (set out in the guidance's decision-making models).

If what happened departed from these standards, it is worth quoting them. You can read the guidance at gmc-uk.org.