Good Medical Practice: comparing the views of doctors and the general population

To assess the views of the general public and general practitioners (GPs) on the General Medical Council's Good Medical Practice.

A large national consumer survey organization (MORI) was commissioned to conduct a survey of a representative sample of the general public using quota sampling methods with randomly selected sampling points across Great Britain. A similar survey was carried out of GPs across Great Britain. Questions were asked of the general public about their perceptions on medical practitioners keeping their knowledge sufficiently up to date to do their job, on complaints being properly investigated, and about doctors being removed from the General Medical Council register if they failed to perform a specifically defined duty. The GPs were asked the same questions about duties. The general public was also asked whether they worked in the National Health Service (NHS), about any recent experiences as a patient in the NHS and whether they had ever complained about a doctor.

A total of 1949 people were interviewed in their homes along with 199 GPs. Over one-third either worked in the NHS or had friends or relatives who worked in the NHS. Eleven per cent felt they had reason to complain about a doctor although only 6% had made a formal or informal written or verbal complaint. The general public and GPs held similar views on reasons for doctors being removed from the register, although the public's threshold was somewhat lower than the doctors.

GPs and the general public have similar views on good medical practice, although the degree of concern shown by the public is greater than that registered by doctors. Both groups show similar patterns of variation in their perception of the importance of some duties compared with others.