Doctors Who Refuse Vaccinations Risk Losing Their Right To Practise

March 3, 2010 by Infowars Ireland

Sam Lister, Health Editor
Times Online
March 2, 2010

Doctors face vaccine check as part of regular medical MoT

Doctors on the NHS front line who refuse vaccinations against common infections risk losing their right to practise under a new appraisal system.

Annual assessments being introduced next year to maintain standards of medical competency will include whether doctors are immunised against common serious communicable diseases. This would include infections such as tuberculosis, hepatitis B and rubella but also could include seasonal flu.

Although current medical best practice guidance recommends jabs for flu where available, many frontline health workers, including GPs and consultants, ignore the advice. In the 2008-09 winter flu season, fewer than one in seven frontline NHS staff had a flu jab.

Under the new scheme for medical regulation — the biggest overhaul of the sector in 150 years — doctors will undergo annual appraisals of their skills and knowledge. Licences to practise as a doctor will then be issued by the General Medical Council (GMC) every five years, based on the appraisals.

Improving the level of vaccinations among medical staff has proved a constant challenge for health authorities, with fewer than 20 per cent of frontline NHS workers bothering with flu vaccines. Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, has called repeatedly for improvement.

In the core standards released yesterday by the GMC, setting out assessments that have been compiled by each medical specialty, all doctors in contact with patients must “be immunised against common serious communicable diseases where vaccines are available”. Evidence of vaccinations — or adequate reasons for not being immunised — would be required to comply with the appraisal.

The requirement is set out as part of the revalidation system, which was put out to a three-month consultation yesterday. The medical profession, patients and other groups are to be asked to give their views about how proposals are introduced to revalidate an estimated 218,000 doctors in the UK.

The system, a world first, is designed to identify doctors who repeatedly make poor clinical decisions, and will use evidence from patient questionnaires and feedback from colleagues.

The medical colleges, which represent different clinical specialties, are also required to develop tests to check that doctors are keeping abreast of advances. Doctors who fall short of required standards risk being removed from the medical register. Read more…