R (British Medical Association) v General Medical Council
[2025] EWHC 960 (Admin)
23 Apr 2025
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Since 13 December 2024, the General Medical Council (GMC) has been the regulator of not only doctors (its traditional role) but also Physician Associates (PAs) and Anaesthesia Associates (AAs). In anticipation of assuming its new regulatory role, the GMC engaged in extensive consultation as to appropriate standards to which PAs and AAs should be held and as to how they should be described.
In R (British Medical Association) v General Medical Council [2025] EWHC 960 (Admin), the BMA challenged two of the GMC’s decisions: that Associates should be subject to the same basic standards as doctors in a modified version of Good Medical Practice and that it was appropriate in certain contexts to refer to the three groups as “medical professionals”. The BMA argued that, in so doing, the GMC had acted unlawfully in undermining its over-arching statutory purpose of protecting the public and had acted irrationally.
On 17 April 2025, Mrs Justice Lambert DBE handed down a judgment in which she dismissed the BMA’s claim (which she also found to be out of time). Lambert J decided that the GMC was entitled to decide that the public was best protected by subjecting Associates to the same high standards as doctors where their roles overlapped and that the GMC had made clear that all professionals were under a duty to identify their role accurately to patients and to practise only within the limits of their competence.
Ivan Hare KC represented the GMC.
The judgment is available here.
