current consultations
Consultation from The General Medical Council on the new draft of their guidance Good Medical Practice
(1 November 2011 – 10 February 2012)
Good Medical Practice, the General Medical Council's core guidance for all doctors, sets out the standards, principles and values expected of doctors. It plays a vital role in keeping patients safe and improving professional standards, and this new draft aims to ensure it remains up-to-date and relevant to doctors in their day to day practice.
There is an online questionnaire on the GMC's website at www.gmc-uk.org
Good Medical Practice, 2012: Draft for consultation
The duties of a doctor registered with the General Medical Council
Background and consultation questions
New guidance on dealing with complaints about assisting suicide
A working group of Council members has considered the issues for the GMC raised by the case of a patient who wished to know what advice or support, if any, doctors could give to patients who were considering ending their lives. The General Medical Council is developing guidance for GMC case examiners and the Investigation Committee to help them decide what action to take if a doctor is alleged to have assisted in a suicide.
The current guidance for decision makers can be found in the Guidance for case examiners and the Investigation Committee.
There will be a public consultation on the draft guidance for GMC case examiners and the Investigation Committee in early 2012. Further information will be posted here once it is publicly available.
The GMC press release is here.
Nuffield Council on Bioethics: Call for evidence on the ethics of mitochondrial donation
(19 January – 24 February 2012)
The Nuffield Council is inviting evidence to inform its consideration of ethical issues arising from techniques to prevent the transmission of inherited mitochondrial disorders. The treatment of inherited mitochondrial abnormalities in human embryos using donor mitochondria is an advancing area of research (creating so-called 'three parent embryos'). This research will explore the ethical issues relevant to affected families, potential donors, researchers, medical professionals and others trying to understand and respond to the therapeutic possibility of mitochondrial transfer.
This is an open Call for Evidence, seeking ethical views on any aspect of these emerging techniques and the issues associated with them. Accordingly, there are no structured questions for response.
The closing date for written evidence is 5pm, Friday 24 February 2012.
The proposals and consultation response details can be found here.
A CMF blog highlighting some of the issues can be found here.
Draft Specialist Palliative Care Measures for the Manual for Cancer Services
(5 December 2011 - 27 February 2012)
A draft version of the Specialist Palliative Care Measures has been issued for a three-month consultation. It is the intention to add the Specialist Palliative Care Measures to the Manual for Cancer Services. The Manual supports the National Cancer Peer Review quality assurance programme for cancer services and enables quality improvement both in terms of clinical and patient outcomes. The manual is used by the National Cancer Peer Review Programme as part of the assessment of cancer services and to provide a ready specification for commissioning of cancer services within a given locality. It identifies the characteristics of service that are likely to have a significant impact on health outcomes. This is not a public consultation and is aimed at interested stakeholders only.
A copy of the draft measures can be found in the Cancer Section on the Department of Health web-site: http: