Doctors who change gender are allowed to scrub past wrongdoing from public record

The GMC confirms to The Telegraph that new records for medics who change gender are wiped of previous suspensions and formal warnings.

Sandie Peggie’s case against NHS Fife for alleged harassment after the nurse raised concerns about a trans colleague has caused alarm among women and campaigners across the country. The NHS, she claims, was prioritising the rights of Dr Beth Upton, a trans doctor who was born male but insisted on using the women’s changing room, over her rights to a single-sex space.

Now, it can be revealed that the General Medical Council (GMC), which regulates doctors, takes an even more extreme stance on trans medics – effectively scrubbing the public disciplinary history of doctors who change their identities in this way.

The GMC confirms that Dr Upton is one of 62 doctors to have been given new registrations under different GMC numbers, meaning that future patients would be unable to see any details of their doctor’s previous identity by searching the GMC’s online database using the medic’s new name and number.

A GMC number is a doctor’s professional fingerprint and appears on all of their paperwork – training, appraisals, official “revalidation”, prescriptions and, should they be unfortunate enough to receive one, complaints. It’s the one constant that proves a doctor is who they say they are.

Not only has the GMC issued Dr Upton with a new registration number, but the page with the doctor’s previous male identity remains on the GMC list, without any visible external link between the two.

Further more, according to its own guidelines, the GMC does not require doctors to “provide any evidence of your change in gender status”. Thus, a female patient who specifically requests a female doctor has no way of knowing whether that doctor was once biologically male.

Source: Doctors who change gender are allowed to scrub past wrongdoing from public record