The GMC's guidance on Using social media as a medical professional came into effect on 30 January 2024, alongside the current edition of Good medical practice. The GMC updated it on 13 December 2024 when it began regulating physician associates and anaesthesia associates. It runs to twenty paragraphs. Its starting point is in paragraph 4: the standards expected of you do not change because you are communicating through social media rather than face to face.
Use that sentence as your test. Take a remark you would not make on a ward round, or a picture you would not show a stranger. The GMC judges it the same way when it appears in a group chat or on a public profile.
What counts as social media
Paragraph 3 defines social media widely. It includes private messaging as well as websites and applications that let users create and share content or take part in social networking. A WhatsApp group of colleagues is within it. So is a closed Facebook group for a specialty, a comment under a news article and a direct message to a patient.
Paragraph 9 adds two warnings. In many cases someone can trace content uploaded anonymously back to its point of origin. Messages in private groups may also become public. The same paragraph reminds you that the GMC has a legal duty to investigate any concern that reaches its fitness to practise threshold. So a screenshot sent to the GMC by a member of the group is a concern like any other.
Freedom of expression has limits
The guidance recognises in paragraph 7 that medical professionals have rights to freedom of belief, privacy and expression. But it says you must balance the exercise of those rights as a medical professional against the possible impact on other people's rights and interests. It does not tell you to stay silent on contested questions of health policy. Instead, it tells you how to speak.
When you comment on health or healthcare, paragraph 8 says you should usually say who you are. You should also give context that helps people verify your claims and expertise. Paragraph 11 requires reasonable steps to make sure what you communicate is not false or misleading. It also forbids misrepresenting your experience and qualifications. Good medical practice goes further at paragraph 89: you must not deliberately leave out relevant information, minimise risks of harm or present opinion as established fact.
Paragraph 14 is the hard line. You must not use social media to abuse, discriminate against, bully, harass or deliberately target any individual or group. Paragraph 15 reminds you that the law of defamation, harassment, discrimination and copyright applies online in the same way. That holds whether you post in a personal or a professional capacity.
Patients and confidentiality
The confidentiality paragraphs catch careful doctors as well as careless ones. Paragraph 19 deals with individual pieces of information that do not breach confidentiality on their own. It points out that, taken together, they can be enough for a patient or someone close to them to recognise the case. Take a post about an unusual presentation on a named shift in a small town, with an age and a date. It can identify a patient without any name appearing. Paragraph 20 says you must not disclose identifiable information about patients without explicit consent, for example for education. Even then, you may do so only in line with the GMC's guidance on disclosure for teaching and on recordings.
The guidance deals with boundaries in paragraphs 16 and 17. If a patient contacts you about their care through your private profile, you should direct them to an appropriate healthcare setting. Friend requests from patients, and conversations about their treatment through personal accounts, are where the separate GMC guidance on personal and professional boundaries comes into play.
Advertising and endorsements
Some doctors use social media to advertise their services, or use their professional position to promote products or services. If you do, paragraph 12 requires you to be open about any interests that may influence the recommendations you make. You must also comply with the rules of the Committee of Advertising Practice, the Advertising Standards Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority. Paragraph 13 directs you to the GMC's guidance on conflicts of interest and on cosmetic interventions where they apply. Paid partnerships with aesthetics brands and supplement companies fall within this part of the guidance.
If a post leads to a complaint
Paragraph 2 of the guidance says that the GMC will not treat every departure from the standards as serious. It adds a reassurance. If you use your professional judgement, act in good faith and act in the interests of patients, you will be able to explain and justify your decisions. What you do in the first days after a complaint shapes that explanation.
Before you change anything, keep a copy of the post, the thread around it and the dates. Deleting content after a complaint, without a record, can look like concealment. If the post was wrong, take it down. Where you owe an apology, give a short one that does not argue. Then reflect in writing on what happened and what you have changed. That way you can show what you have learned if the GMC asks.
Your employer may have its own social media policy, and paragraph 6 requires you to follow it. An employer investigation and a GMC enquiry can run together, so answer both from the same set of facts.
If you are a nurse, dentist, pharmacist or other healthcare professional, the NMC publishes social media guidance of its own, last updated in July 2025, and a post that breaches another regulator's code is investigated through that regulator's own process. Our pages for each profession explain how those processes run.
Eloquia acts for doctors in GMC investigations on fixed fees by stage, each stated plus VAT. A specialist barrister is involved from the outset, and the fee includes their work, while we quote expert fees separately. Our page on GMC investigations explains each stage, and our fees and funding page sets out what each one costs.
If you have received a letter from the GMC about something you posted, do not reply to the complainant online. Preserve the material, and take advice before you send the GMC any response.
Sources
- GMC, Using social media as a medical professional (effective 30 January 2024, updated 13 December 2024), summary page
- GMC, Using social media as a medical professional, paragraphs 1 to 20
- GMC, Good medical practice (2024), Domain 4: Trust and professionalism, paragraphs 88 to 91
- NMC: Social media guidance
