In 2020, guess how many of our ‘GPs’

The General Medical Council register, nationwide,

Assessed as wholly ‘fit to practise’ – three hundred and thirty

Seven thousand doctors worked as qualified

Over the same twelve months, the general public, citing

Dissatisfaction with their conduct and behaviour,

Submitted six thousand three hundred and eighteen complaints in writing,

Each one expecting their own report to meet with favour

Yet what results, and that’s ‘erasures’ and suspensions

From the register, would you imagine came our way?

Well, I’ll tell you, it was nine; how much attention

Is properly paid to what we patients have to say?

When compared to other complainants (‘regulators’,

Public bodies, other doctors and officials)

They were nine times less likely to allocate us

A tribunal, when it was us blowing whistles

Furthermore, if you care to look at respective figures

For complaints from ‘them’ and ‘us’, you’d have to mention

Each of theirs had a chance, kid you not, twenty-four times bigger

When it came to securing erasures or suspension

Why should a medic’s word be given precedence

Over the public’s? As, when they’ve chosen to deny

What happened, they’ll be backed up without evidence –

A privilege not afforded you and I

‘But he was photographed, he’s naked from the waist down’;

‘No, he’s explained, it’s not, his fault, he’s sad to say

That the belt broke on his trousers, and they fell down to the ground

The self same second the elastic in his underpants gave way’

It’s high time that the authorities weren’t so hasty,

Gave equal credence to the public’s own good word

When arbitrating on issues of patient safety –

It’s no good if just the one side counts as heard

There’s just three chances they’ll not turn down our advances

And deign to listen, to accept the public’s call

That a medic’s hid the truth. And those three chances?

Why, they’d be ‘zero’, ‘bugger all’ and then ‘sod all’

And if these doctors we report really are innocent

Of all misconduct, or dishonesty (‘misconstrued’),

As pure as the proverbial driven snow, and similarly heaven sent –

Take them to polygraph, and see what tests conclude…