Few letters frighten a doctor more than one that reports a patient's allegation of sexual misconduct. The allegation may concern an examination you remember well, or a consultation you cannot recall at all. Either way, it tends to set off two processes at once, a police investigation and a GMC investigation. Each has its own pace and its own standard of proof. How you handle the first weeks has a large effect on both.

What the GMC's 2024 guidance says

Good medical practice took effect in its current form on 30 January 2024, and paragraph 86 sets the rule. You must not act in a sexual way towards patients. Nor may you use your professional position to pursue a sexual or improper emotional relationship with a patient or someone close to them. The more detailed guidance, Maintaining personal and professional boundaries, came into effect on the same date. It describes all forms of sexual misconduct as always unacceptable. Its examples include sexual comments and innuendo, suggestive looks, intrusive questions about a person's private life and excessive compliments on appearance. Paragraph 24 makes the point that sexual behaviour towards a patient need not involve touching.

The list matters in defence. Many allegations concern words rather than touch. So a doctor who prepares only to explain an examination technique has not prepared for the part of the case that concerns the words used.

Two tracks running together

If the patient goes to the police, you can expect an invitation to a voluntary interview under caution or, less often, an arrest. Sexual offences are likely to be disclosable to an employer or regulator under Common Law Police Disclosure, so the GMC may learn of the investigation early. The Professional Standards Authority has reported the GMC's practice. It allows the GMC to wait for a police investigation to finish before opening its own enquiry, unless the case calls for an interim order. Where the GMC considers that it does, it refers you to an interim orders tribunal. That tribunal can impose conditions on your registration or suspend it while the police work continues.

The criminal court asks whether the prosecution has proved the offence so that it is sure. A medical practitioners tribunal applies the civil standard. It asks whether the GMC has proved the facts on the balance of probabilities. An acquittal does not of itself prevent a GMC case on the same facts. And each forum will read what you say in the other, so the two cases need one consistent account and one strategy.

How the tribunals view it

Until 24 November 2025 tribunals applied the MPTS sanctions guidance of February 2024, which addressed sexual misconduct. Paragraph 150 said that sexual misconduct seriously undermines public trust in the profession. It added that more serious action, such as erasure, is likely to be appropriate where a doctor has abused the special position of trust a doctor occupies.

On 30 September 2025 the MPTS published new guidance for tribunals. It replaced the sanctions guidance for every hearing that starts on or after 24 November 2025. The new guidance sets out specific case types, and sexual misconduct is the first of them. It gives guidance on seriousness, interim orders, impairment, warnings and sanction. In 2023 the GMC said that in many cases involving sexual allegations its position will be that the misconduct is incompatible with continued registration. It also said that it will submit that erasure is the appropriate sanction.

A finding of sexual motivation changes everything that follows. So the facts stage of the hearing is where the defence must do its work.

Chaperones and records

The GMC's guidance on intimate examinations and chaperones says that you should offer a chaperone for an intimate examination and explain the chaperone's role. You should also make sure the chaperone has had training and a briefing, and can see what you are doing. A relative or friend is not usually a suitable chaperone. Paragraph 23 says you should record the detail and outcome of any discussion about a chaperone in the medical record. If a chaperone was present, you record that and note their identity and role. Where the patient declined, you record that you made the offer and the patient declined it.

The guidance also asks you to explain, before the examination, why it is necessary and what it involves. You should tell the patient that they may ask you to stop at any time, and record their consent. These entries often do more for a doctor than any character reference. A note written at the time that records the explanation, the consent and the chaperone offer is evidence a tribunal can rely on. Its absence leaves your word against the patient's.

What to do when the allegation arrives

  • Do not contact the patient or anyone close to them, even to apologise or explain.
  • Do not alter or add to the records. Ask for a copy of the records as they stand, and of the rota showing who was on shift.
  • Write a private note for your lawyer of what you remember, marked as prepared for legal advice. Do not share it with colleagues.
  • Identify the chaperone and any other witness, and leave it to your lawyers to approach them.
  • Take advice before any police interview and before you reply to the GMC.

If you are a nurse, dentist, pharmacist or other healthcare professional

Each regulator's own guidance singles out sexual misconduct. The NMC's fitness to practise library carries a guide on it, the GDC's guidance for the practice committees treats it in its appendix on particular categories of case, the HCPC's sanctions policy has sections on sexual misconduct and sexually motivated misconduct, and the GCC's guidance on sanctions has a section of its own. The police track runs in the same way whatever your profession, and the regulator's interim order powers differ, so read our pages for nurses and midwives, dentists, HCPC professionals, osteopaths and chiropractors.

Eloquia runs the police and GMC tracks together. Police interview and pre charge representations cost a fixed £15,000 plus VAT through our criminal defence partner. An interim orders tribunal costs £4,500 plus VAT per hearing. A specialist barrister is involved from the outset in every case, and the fee includes their work. We quote expert fees and other expenses separately. Our page on criminal allegations against doctors explains how we run both tracks, and our fees and funding page sets out each fixed fee, all stated plus VAT.

Sources

  1. Good medical practice 2024, Domain 4: Trust and professionalism, paragraph 86, GMC
  2. Maintaining personal and professional boundaries, GMC (in effect 30 January 2024)
  3. Intimate examinations and chaperones, GMC
  4. Sanctions guidance for medical practitioners tribunals, MPTS and GMC, in use from 5 February 2024 to 23 November 2025, paragraphs 149 and 150
  5. Professional Standards Authority, Monitoring report: GMC 2024/25
  6. No crackdown on surgeons accused of sexually assaulting colleagues until January 2024, i news (GMC statement)
  7. Police powers: common law and disclosing information, Kingsley Napley (2015)
  8. Common Law Police Disclosure, Home Office (2015)
  9. Medical Act 1983, section 41A (interim orders)
  10. Guidance to the GMC's Fitness to Practise Rules 2004 (as amended), paragraph 126 (civil standard of proof)
  11. Guidance for MPTS tribunals, published 30 September 2025, in effect for hearings starting on or after 24 November 2025, MPTS
  12. NMC: Fitness to practise library
  13. GDC: Fitness to Practise, Guidance for the practice committees, version 1.0, 6 January 2026
  14. HCPC: Sanctions policy, 2 March 2026
  15. GCC: Guidance on Sanctions, April 2018