Dear Editor,
Daniel Sokol claims that ensuring "kindness" from doctors even outside their professional spaces should fall within the remit of the GMC. However, as a barrister his own regular Bar Standards Board takes a much stronger line on regulated professionals' right to free speech:
"The use of heated or foul language alone in the context of social media debate is unlikely to be seen as a breach of the BSB Handbook." [1]
While we might well praise affability, or kind-heartedness among the virtues of good doctors it is less clear that ensuring this at all times is the function of the regulator, which exists to protect patient safety. And though he is within his rights to denounce "viperous" contributors on social media, it is also poisonous to fear retaliation against the expression of real concerns - and the prospect of a complaint, even one eventually rejected, can have a chilling effect.
At a minimum, if the GMC is to regulate "kindness" then doctors are owed at a minimum some worked examples on where the boundaries lie, a statement of support for their Article 8 rights to free speech, and the opportunity to question and challenge the guidance itself without being labelled as merely "unkind" for doing so.
1 https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/bsb-guidance-on-conduct-in-no...
Re: Vexatious complaints are being weaponised to discourage debate