Do junior doctors practise to the UK General Medical Council standards?

Summary Background:  The the UK General Medical Council’s publication Good Medical Practice gives guidance on the standards of professionalism that can be expected of doctors; doctors are also expected to recognise and to confront poor practice. This study was undertaken to discover how often suboptimal standards of care were observed by junior doctors in their own clinical setting. Methods:  Positive and negative statements concerning the behaviours of doctors were developed for each of the 14 listed duties in Good Medical Practice . Foundation year‐2 trainees (168 total) from seven hospital trusts were asked to ‘allocate a frequency where you have observed other junior doctors conforming to the described behaviour since you have been a foundation doctor’. The frequencies were ‘every day’, ‘once a week’, ‘once a month’, ‘once a year’ and ‘never’. Results:  For nine of the 14 standards other doctors were observed to fail to conform at least on a weekly or monthly basis. Poor practice was observed on a weekly basis by at least 25 per cent of respondents, relating to patient care being the doctor’s first concern, respect for privacy and dignity, listening to and respecting the views of patients, giving information in a way that can be easily understood, involving patients in decision making and protecting confidential information. Discussion:  The trainee doctors have commonly observed both good and, to a similar degree, poor medical practice in their peer group. Individual incidents may not have been serious, as none had been reported through governance mechanisms. However, collectively the negative observations could have an impact on patient well‐being.