Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 72 (4) November 2022
Submission
To: Good medical Practice Consultation
Standards and Ethics
Team
GMC
Regents Park
350 Euston Rd.
London. NW1 3JN
29th June 2022
Response of the Medical Ethics Alliance to the Good Medical Practice Consultation
The Medical Ethics Alliance is a coalition of six medical and nursing
bodies which upholds the Hippocratic tradition and looks to the
Declaration of Geneva (1948) for inspiration.
We wish to respond to
the proposed change to paragraph 24 of the Good Medical Practice.
The right to conscience is fundamental and upheld by many international treaties and in particular by Article 5 of the European Convention Human Rights which is incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998. It is therefore right that it applies within the medical profession as raised in paragraph 24 of the Good Medical Practice.
We hold that issues of conscience arise across the whole of medical practice not only at the beginning and end of life but ,for example, with basic care such as the provision of fluids and nutrition by artificial means. Moreover, trust and communication between patients and medical professionals is of the essence of good medical practice as is made clear elsewhere in Good Medical Practice and this must apply in this context.
We are concerned by the proposed change to paragraph 24 under which the previous paragraph 52 from the 2013 version of Good Medical Practice has been amended to remove the requirement for medical professionals to explain to a patient if they have a conscientious objection. The Consultation states that: ‘The main point of this duty is that patients should not be denied access to appropriate care because of the personal beliefs of the medical professional’.
Whilst accepting this point, we maintain that there is no reason why discussions of matters of conscience should not take place between patients and medical professionals provided that they are initiated by patients and not by doctors. If a medical professional exercises their right of conscience they should be entitled to respond to questions from the patient.
Furthermore whilst we accept that patients are entitled to a second opinion, we strongly contend that medical professionals should not be obliged to refer patients to a colleague who would do what was held to be unacceptable by the referrer. It should never become "I won`t do it but I know of someone who will". This amounts to knowing cooperation.
Yours sincerely
Dr A P Cole FRCP (Edin), FRCPCH
Chairman Medical Ethics Alliance
Editor’s note: Further submissions were made by the CMA and also by individual members.