My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, in her Amendment 283, which would include financial and non-pecuniary interests of medical practitioners alongside clinical interests and their recognised and accredited specialisms on a register. I particularly thank her for explaining exactly why this is so important for patients. Currently, the GMC does not require them to hold or publish that data, but it is the obvious place for it to be held—and then linked, as she explained, to local employers, contractors and organisations. Anything that reduces the complex maze for a patient or a member of the public trying to find out whether a doctor is being paid for doing some work or using particular devices, and might therefore have an interest, has to be one of the cornerstones of a truly accessible and accountable register of interests. In today’s data-rich society, patients and the wider community want to understand what interests a doctor may have, but which may not be obvious.
A website called whopaysthisdoctor.org at Sunshine UK—so-called, I presume, because sunlight is always the best disinfectant—was set up by number of doctors, including Ben Goldacre. It is a database where doctors who want to be transparent about their interests can declare and register them, and the public can see whether their doctor is listed. The problem, of course, is that those who do not want to make these declarations voluntarily may be those we most want to see. That is why the amendment would make it compulsory.
I thank the GMC for its helpful brief, in which it recognises that the
“current arrangements to register conflicts of interest fall short of delivering adequate transparency and assurance for patients.”
However, the GMC would prefer this register to be maintained just at a local level and
“published by a doctor’s employer, contractor or organisation”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has already referred to the recommendations in the First Do No Harm review and the Government’s response, in which they said that it was proposed that information would be published locally at an employer level. However, I believe that there is also a golden thread from the obvious place to go, where doctors already have a duty to register other information, and that is the GMC.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, I am keen to see action on this. Personally, I believe that the registration body is a good place to hold that data and, as she said, we need to start somewhere. But, frankly, we need to see progress on a register of interests. I hope the Minister can give your Lordships’ House some encouraging news on this.