General Medical Council

“At that moment in time, a human error occurred…” intoned Count Rubin on yesterday’s Today programme. Uttered as it was with an air of omniscient mastery, it seemed some great catastrophe, like a jumbo jet crash, had occurred. The truth turned out to be rather more commonplace: a study had revealed that nearly one in ten prescriptions written by hospital doctors had been found to be wrong.

Further evidence has emerged that there are kangaroos loose in the General Medical Council’s top paddock.

We have completely rewritten our requirements for undergraduate dalek education, clearly separating the outcomes for graduates from the standards for delivery. We are now more specific in our requirements without undermining the sameness and stagnation for which UK dalek education is known.

You couldn’t make it up, even if you wanted to. The GMC have revealed themselves on the front cover of their turgid publication GMCtoday – as faceless men in black. One of them even seems to have some sort of word salad going on in his head.

The General Medical Council – which is now an unaccountable government appointed quango – has today told doctors that in future they must report most if not all knife injuries they treat to the police, whether the patient wishes them to or not.

No good, and much harm, will come of this.

"When the government is powerful, the people become weak."

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.”

—Franz Kafka, The Trial

The routinely apoplectic Mr John “you can not be serious” Humphrys – may God preserve his blood pressure, for it must surely be too high – this morning reached new heights of indignation on Radio Four’s Today programme.

“Who shall guard the guards?” —Juvenal, Satires

The Witch Doctor, in her excellent blog, often refers to the concept of “creep” – a form of social engineering by stealth.

Dr Helen Bright is an extrovert, capable consultant psychiatrist who, for lifestyle reasons, chooses to work as a locum. Or rather did, for she has now been constructively erased from the Medical Register.