A nine-year-old constituent of mine, Jack Moate, died in 2015, two months after an operation was carried out on his hips by an orthopaedic consultant at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge. Jack’s mother, Elizabeth, said he spent his final weeks in “constant agonising pain”. At the time, she had been told that his treatment had been properly reviewed and that no concerns had been identified, but an independent clinical review later found
“evidence that fatal physical harm was caused”.
A nine-year-old boy in constant, agonising pain.
As the case has been referred to the coroner, I am restricted by the sub judice rule under which we operate in commenting further on the details of Jack’s case at this stage. It is, of course, vital that the inquest can ensure that the full truth is established.
One of the key things I want to achieve through this Adjournment debate, on behalf of Elizabeth, is to encourage the Minister, who is respected across the House, to ask for a full briefing from her officials on the full aspects of this case. It is not constrained by the sub judice rule, so she is able to get that briefing from her officials. I therefore hope that she will be fully sighted on the issues that it gives rise to.
What I can talk about at this stage is the wider regulatory landscape regarding clinicians, and specifically the role of the GMC, on which there is currently a live consultation titled, “Reforming the General Medical Council legislative council”. As the Minister will know, that consultation is open until 23 June, so this Adjournment debate is timely.
The issues at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS foundation trust raise serious wider patient safety concerns in the context of the consultation, specifically where concerns are raised but a trust does not act, where a trust does not act even after a whistleblower has raised concerns, and where other clinicians fail to intervene, and where the regulatory oversight does not kick in. It is vital, in the context of that consultation, that the GMC takes the opportunity to review expeditiously how it reforms medical practices that are problematic, and to ensure that they are not strung out over a period of many years, as I will come on to highlight.
Where shortcomings in medical practice are discovered, the GMC should act immediately to protect patients, rather than waiting for the outcome of a coroner’s process, which may take many years to conclude, during which time further harm could be caused. I hope the House will revisit the circumstances of Jack’s case once the coroner’s process has been concluded, and I hope the Minister will commit to returning to the House to make a statement at that point, so that the issues that cannot be raised today can be debated without restriction.
Alongside that issue with the GMC, I want to raise two further points. My second point relates to the GMC’s judgment, and specifically its poor judgment in relation to antisemitism. The Minister will have noticed her own Department’s response just this morning to Lord Mann’s recommendations to tackle what he describes as
I begin by thanking the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) for bringing this debate to the House today and for his advocacy on behalf of his constituents. I hope that Jack’s family, at what must be a terrible time for them, gain a small measure of solace from his story being raised in this place.
I have the great privilege to be a co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the survivors of Fayed and Harrods. I say that because it gives me the privilege of working with dozens of survivors who bring their stories to us, and members of the APPG can drive forward the agenda of bringing the crimes to light and ensuring that the systems that enabled the abuse for so long are dismantled. That is why I wanted to take the opportunity of this debate to place on the record the serious concerns that survivors of abuse by Mohamed Al Fayed and his associates have about the failings of the General Medical Council in his case and associated ones.
I am sure that the House knows that Fayed has been accused of systematic trafficking for sexual abuse, aided by a network of enablers. So far, almost 500 survivors have come forward to tell their stories, and there are believed to be many more. Fayed has rightly been called the UK’s Epstein. One dimension of the network that enabled his abuse relates to invasive medical examinations that he had doctors perform on female staff at various companies he owned. They were billed as standard company medicals, but they involved invasive gynaecological procedures and testing for sexually transmitted infections. In many cases, survivors say, results were delivered straight to their abuser without their knowledge.
I thank the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) for raising this extremely serious matter very powerfully on behalf of his constituent Elizabeth, following the tragic loss of her son Jack. Our thoughts are with her and the rest of the family. We Members of Parliament find ourselves dealing with tragedies, but we are able to give our constituents a voice, and that is a great honour—a sad one, but one we take very seriously. I commit to working with the right hon. Gentleman as we move forward.
As the right hon. Gentleman said, the General Medical Council is there first and foremost to protect patients and maintain public confidence in the medical profession. It is the regulator of all medical doctors, anaesthesia associates and physician associates practising in the United Kingdom. It defines standards for ethics, competence and patient safety, and it has a duty to investigate concerns about doctors’ performance or conduct.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Verita review, so let me start there. In January last year, Cambridge University hospitals trust commissioned Verita, an objective investigations company, to undertake a review of the hospital’s governance. Meanwhile, the Kennedy report into the missed opportunities surrounding Dr Stohr’s case is still ongoing. Verita’s report was published in October 2025 and made 23 recommendations. The broad themes that emerged from that investigation were: first, that doctors needed more oversight, clinical supervision and performance management; secondly, improving safety governance through better board-level visibility and escalation pathways; thirdly, proper oversight of clinical reviews, and ensuring that they are acted on promptly, and that changes are made; and finally, a change in medical culture and behaviour, so that staff feel empowered to hold their hands up when things go wrong. The trust has accepted the findings, published an action plan and apologised to affected families, as I understand it. We expect the hospital to implement the findings of the review in full, because Jack Moate’s family deserve absolute transparency from the authorities, and they have the right to know that lessons will be learned when things go wrong.
4:22 pm
House adjourned.
House adjourned.
“routine ostracism of Jewish people”
in the NHS—that is the description from the Government’s adviser. Indeed, Ministers quite rightly have said that all racism in the NHS is abhorrent, yet current GMC practice, to me, falls significantly below the expectations set out in Lord Mann’s report. Given that his recommendations have been welcomed and accepted by the Government in full, there must be an expectation that the consultation, and indeed reform of the GMC, will reflect that. Will Health Ministers require the GMC to change the current threshold for what it sees as a standard compatible with an NHS clinician?
Let me give a specific example that illustrates the current gap between the GMC and what I see as the Government’s response to Lord Mann’s report. Just a few weeks ago, the NHS clinician Dr Martin Whyte was seen as fit by the GMC to join the GMC specialist register—a senior role within the NHS. Yet when I was Secretary of State for Health, I reported Dr Martin Whyte to the GMC following abhorrent social media comments. While it is distressing to read them out, I think it is important for the House to hear exactly what this doctor—who has just been put on the GMC specialist register—had to say. For example, he said:
“hahaha zeig heil hahaha gas the jews hahaha just kidding but have you seen these youtube videos about the holohoax they’re pretty convincing imo”.
That is from a doctor. In another tweet, he said:
“Ahaha you thin skinned babyman. How are you still so prominent at the BBC? Did you and Tony Hall kill a prostitute together or something?”
Another tweet talked of “Jew banker goblins”—that gives a sense of the character we are dealing with.
Obviously, I had a sometimes challenging relationship with the British Medical Association during my time as Health Secretary, but interestingly even it, which Dr Whyte unsuccessfully tried to sue, said that he was someone who could never return to represent it in any elected office. The BMA found him unpalatable—but not, it seems, the GMC.
That is not an isolated case. The Campaign Against Antisemitism has said:
“Britain’s regulatory bodies are failing the Jewish community. Time and again doctors who spew antisemitic bile online and in the streets are being allowed to continue practising medicine”.
Again, that is a flavour of Lord Mann’s report from this morning.
There are other examples. I will not go through them all, but I will give just one example. Dr Rehiana Ali, a consultant neurologist who was reinstated just last year, said that the architect of the 7 October attacks was a “legend”, called for Israel to be “dismantled” and claimed that 9/11 was conducted by Mossad.
I have no doubt that such examples horrify the Minister, given her good reputation in the House, as well as Members on all Benches. But they do point to why the consultation is timely and why, in response to Lord Mann’s report, we need to see action in respect of the GMC.
The third issue that I want to highlight regards the wider poor performance of the GMC. This is an organisation that spends north of £100 million on staff costs—it has got more than 1,700 staff—yet doctors’ fitness to practise hearings are taking, on average, almost two years to process, with a recent increase in cases open for three years or more. That time matters because the NHS must continue to pay suspended doctors in full until they are formally found to be guilty of misconduct or incompetence. It just adds to the grievance that families feel when they see a doctor being paid for years even though there are very serious concerns regarding their fitness to practise—never mind the fact that if they do continue to practise during that time, there may be ongoing risk to patients.
Further, in October last year it came to light that the GMC had allowed doctors with restrictions regarding their overseas practice to practise without restrictions here, which clearly can put patients at risk. It is notable that even the Medical Defence Union has called for new legislation so that the GMC can overhaul its processes. Will the Minister use the Health Bill as an opportunity to table amendments for that? If not, which legislation will she use to address some of these issues regarding the GMC?
In a spirit of balance, when dealing with regulatory bodies I want to be clear about the important distinction to draw between the sort of cases I have highlighted and those of medics who have made a genuine mistake—often in a highly pressured environment—where indeed we want to encourage a culture of openness and learning. Indeed, I think back to the 2011 case of Dr Bawa-Garba, where I think a lot of the backlash to that and concerns of the wider profession were about the sense that clinical reflections made in good faith as part of learning were being used in legal proceedings, as well as the extent to which a trainee was possibly being scapegoated.
I hope the House can see the marked distinction between the grave cases that I have highlighted today and the case of a clinician who, in the heat of a high pressure situation, made a genuine mistake and where the case is addressed in a spirit of openness and transparency. I am sure the Minister can draw that distinction.
I hope that I am correct in my understanding that Ministers are minded to give the Professional Standards Authority greater powers, including to ensure that it has the information necessary to make decisions on exercising its right to appeal fitness to practise decisions, and to enable a more agile approach to regulatory performance monitoring. If the Minister confirms that in her response, I would welcome that.
How we protect patients better is a long-running issue. I know a number of my predecessors as Secretary of State for Health were focused on this—indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) worked extensively on patient safety when I was his deputy in the Department. For my part, I focused on giving families a stronger voice in the NHS—through Martha’s rule, for example, and increasing data transparency. It is clear from the Government’s response this morning that the current ministerial team is also focused sincerely on how to enhance patient safety, but that does require a regulator that is fit for purpose, and there are significant concerns about the GMC. I hope that the Minister will use legislation before the House, alongside the current consultation, to address some of the concerns I have raised today.
The women have been left with significant trauma, and anyone who has directly heard their stories, as I have, will no doubt be astonished by the serious consequences of that abuse, yet the doctors who carried out these tests have not paid any price. Survivors are still waiting for justice. One of the doctors who has been accused is still practising on Harley Street today. The General Medical Council says it has a zero-tolerance approach to sexual misconduct—as it should, and as I am sure all right hon. and hon. Members would expect—yet survivors tell me that their complaints to the GMC have gone unacknowledged and unaddressed for far too long.
That is simply unacceptable, as I am sure we would all agree. It is appalling. These women have been left with nowhere to turn. Medical staff who should have been prioritising these women’s safety and health, and who should have been a safe port of call for reporting abuse, were instead complicit in it. The GMC should strike off any doctor found to have participated in these disgusting abuses. I welcome the attention that the Government are rightly giving the issue. Yesterday was a difficult day; there was a meeting between the all-party group and the Prime Minister—the first sitting Prime Minister to meet a group of survivors of historical sexual assault and abuse. In that meeting, he made it very clear that the meeting was the first step in ongoing engagement on this. I wonder if the Minister could carve out an opportunity to meet me and the co-chair of the all-party group, the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), to discuss where the GMC’s responsibilities lie on this, and whether there might be an opportunity for us to feed into the consultation that is open, so that we can ensure that the GMC takes action, although it has failed far too many women for far too long.
The right hon. Gentleman wrote to the Department on 15 May, and his letter makes it very clear that this is one of the worst and most distressing cases that he, in his long experience, has ever encountered. Having read that letter, I agree with him, and I know he does not use those words lightly. I can confirm that the GMC has now done the right thing and launched an investigation into the conduct of Kuldeep Stohr.
The GMC is an independent body, and I cannot go into all the specifics of an individual case, as the right hon. Gentleman will know from his time as Health Secretary. It would be wrong for me to give any further commentary on a live investigation, not least because that could prejudice the outcome and be a barrier to Jack’s family getting justice. Suffice it to say that I am just as appalled as the right hon. Gentleman is that this has gone on for so long.
It has taken almost a decade of missed opportunities for the families to start getting the answers they deserve. I understand that the former Minister for patient safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), met some of the families in November. He also intended to go to Cambridge to meet families and representatives of the trust. Today I can confirm that the new Minister for patient safety, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), is willing to meet the right hon. Gentleman and the Moate family to discuss the shocking circumstances of their case. I hope that they can take some comfort from knowing that although my hon. Friend is new in post, she takes these issues very seriously, she has been a champion for her own constituents who faced patient safety failures in her local trust, and she will be following this case very closely indeed.
It may be helpful for me to outline the broader principles that govern the GMC and its regulatory framework. When an allegation is made about a doctor, the GMC has a duty to investigate and, where necessary, take action to safeguard the health and wellbeing of the public. In serious cases, it can refer a doctor to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service. These procedures can result in doctors being removed from the medical register. That strips away their right to legally practice medicine in this country. The MPTS is a statutory committee of the GMC. It operates separately and independently, which is crucial to maintaining public confidence in its findings. The tribunals have a legal duty to protect the public, and we have clear expectations of them.
This year, we are taking action to modernise the regulation of all healthcare professionals in the UK. In March, we published a consultation on reforming the General Medical Council legislative framework. The reforms would make the process for assessing a doctor’s fitness to practice swifter and fairer, and, as we have heard, the consultation runs until 23 June. The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to consider making amendments to the Health Bill. Given his experience, he will understand that I will not commit to doing that, but I can commit to discussing the matter further, and I encourage him and others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson), who raised the shocking al-Fayed case, to engage with that consultation. We will consider the outcomes of that consultation before we bring legislation to the House, but we expect to lay the General Medical Council order before Parliament later this year, subject to those conversations. I am happy to ensure that the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire and my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield have any further meetings that are necessary with me or with officials, given the tight deadlines that will have to be met under that timetable.
I will touch on the Mann review, which the right hon. Gentleman also highlighted. As we all know, the NHS was founded on the principle of treating everyone equally and with respect. We have been crystal clear that racism and discrimination betray everything the NHS stands for and its ability to provide safe, world-class care. That is why the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), asked the noble Lord Mann to conduct a review into antisemitism and other forms of racism in the NHS. As the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire said, this morning Lord Mann published a series of robust and practical recommendations, and we support every one of them.
The right hon. Gentleman read out some shocking stories from his time as Health Secretary. I cannot comment on them now, but I assure him and other hon. Members that in the weeks and months ahead, we will work with all organisations that have been named in the review, including the GMC, to ensure partners across the system are supported in delivering meaningful change based on the recommendations.
Trust is the glue that holds our institutions together. The public have an absolute right to know that they can trust their doctor, and when things do go wrong, they have a right to swift and transparent justice. I cannot begin to imagine what Jack’s family, and especially his poor mum, are going through. I thank them for their consideration in discussing this with us, and I know that there are many other families involved. The system that we build has to do right by families like theirs. I commit to working further with the right hon. Gentleman and others in this place to do just that.