Promoting Good Practice

Registration carries both privileges and responsibilities. We summarise these responsibilities in 14 key principles, which we call the duties of a doctor. We build on these principles in our core statement of professional values and responsibilities Good Medical Practice. We have also issued various supplementary statements on more specific issues:

• Consent(February 1999)
• Confidentiality(June 2000)
• Serious Communicable Diseases(October 1997)
• Priorities and Choices(July 2000)
• Management in Health Care - The Role of Doctors(May 1999)
• Contractual arrangements in health care: professional responsibilities in relation to the clinical needs of patients(May 1992)
• Transplantation of organs from live donors(November 1992)
• The use of drugs in the treatment of obesity(May 1999)
• Media inquiries about patients(November 1996)
• Intimate examinations(November 1996)
• Guidance for doctors who are asked to circumcise male children(September 1997)
• Making and using visual and audio recordings of patients(September 1997)
• Providing information about your services(November 1997)
• Access to general practitioners? records for financial audit(November 1997)
• Providing advice and medical services on-line or by telephone(November 1998)
• Giving expert advice(November 1998)