Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance his Department provides to GPs to ensure the regulation of self-prescribing by health practitioners.

The Department does not provide doctors with guidance to ensure the regulation of self-prescribing by health practitioners.

The General Medical Council (GMC) is the independent regulator of doctors in the United Kingdom. The GMC guidance, Good Medical Practice describes what is expected of all doctors registered with the GMC. In this guidance it states that a doctor must, wherever possible, avoid providing medical care to themselves or anyone with whom they have a close personal relationship.

The GMC also produces supporting, explanatory guidance, Good Practice in Prescribing and Managing Medicines and Devices that expands on the advice in Good Medical Practice.

A serious or persistent failure to follow this guidance may put a doctor’s registration with the GMC, and their licence to practise at risk.