Trans doctors able to erase disciplinary details from public record

It has emerged that the General Medical Council (GMC) has removed the public disciplinary history of doctors who have changed their gender, by giving them new registration numbers upon changing their identities. The scandal broke on Thursday night after an anaesthetist contacted The Telegraph this week to register concern that Dr Upton - a trans doctor currently at the centre of a landmark case in Scotland - had been given a new registration number.

A GMC spokesman said: “If a doctor had received a historical sanction [i.e. the suspension is no longer in place] prior to transitioning, this information would not be available on their new public-facing record on the medical register.” A GMC number effectively acts as a doctor’s professional fingerprint, and appears on all their paperwork; a patient wanting to check on their doctor in advance is able to search for the doctor’s name and number and discover whether they have had any complaints raised about them before.

Although names can change within the GMC - such as upon marriage - this never results in a change in GMC number, which is supposed to be a career-long piece of information. Issuing transgender doctors with new GMC numbers means that searching for a doctor’s new name and number would not show up any details of previous disciplinary indiscretions. Additionally, the GMC does not require a doctor to disclose their previous gender identity, raising the prospect of a female patient not knowing that their healthcare is being provided by someone who is biologically male.

The KC Sarah Vine commented: “The justification for the GMC’s stance is unsustainable…There is a strong public interest in knowing a doctor’s disciplinary history. It’s very hard to argue that a doctor’s privacy is something that can override that legitimate purpose. It looks like a wholesale misreading of the application of human rights, domestic equality law and the Gender Recognition Act.”

The controversy has emerged within the context of a landmark tribunal case in Scotland, surrounding transgender women (who are biologically male) having access to women’s changing rooms. Dr Beth Upton, a transgender doctor, was given permission to use the women’s changing rooms at Victoria Hospital in Fife; female nurse Sandie Peggie had felt uncomfortable with her presence, and after confronting her over the topic, Dr Upton made a formal complaint, resulting in Ms Peggie’s suspension from work.

There is no suggestion that Dr Upton has previously faced any disciplinary action before changing gender identity. The tribunal case has been adjourned until the summer.

Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy at Sex Matters, said: “There are extremely serious implications for the GMC issuing new numbers – essentially new identities – to 62 doctors…“The implications of this are particularly severe with female patients, who may have requested a female doctor and have not consented to be examined by a man.”

“Patients do have the right to say they only want to see a doctor of one sex or the other. You can’t present as a woman ‘on paper’ and expect patients to sort this out at the rough end of the process in the consultation room. What is a woman in that situation supposed to do when confronted with that? Are they supposed to say, ‘I’m sorry but are you a man?’ Nobody should be put in that position.”

When asked on Thursday night, the Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that the GMC should reverse course urgently and that the situation should “not have been allowed.” He commented: “It is completely within the power of the GMC to find a workaround for this that means transparency for patients, as well as protections in the Equality Act, are preserved. I expect them to make reassurances that they will address this.”