A complaint from a patient arrives by letter. A complaint from a colleague or employee tends to arrive differently. It comes through a meeting with the clinical director, an email from human resources or an unexpected grievance. The complaint may concern a remark on a night shift, a message, a relationship that ended badly or the way you manage a team. Because the complainant works alongside you, the case changes in three ways. The employer acts first, the GMC takes it more seriously, and an employment claim may follow.

The 2024 standards on colleagues

Good medical practice, in force since 30 January 2024, added standards about colleagues that the 2013 version did not contain. Paragraph 56 forbids abusing, discriminating against, bullying or harassing anyone. Paragraph 57 says you must not act in a sexual way towards colleagues with the effect or purpose of causing offence, embarrassment, humiliation or distress. It makes clear that this covers comments, written messages, sharing images and unwelcome physical contact. Paragraph 59 requires anyone in a formal leadership or management role who witnesses or learns of such behaviour to act.

The GMC's guidance on maintaining personal and professional boundaries adds that consensual relationships between colleagues are a private matter. But large differences in power, or an effect on training and career progression, are higher risk factors for a relationship being seen as non consensual, during it or after it ends. The guidance names nightshifts, conferences, residential settings and gaps in seniority as environments with higher risk.

Note the words effect or purpose. A defence that you meant no harm answers only half of paragraph 57.

Why the GMC treats these cases differently

The source of a concern affects what happens to it. The GMC's statistics for 2023 recorded the gap. Employer referrals lead to an investigation in a much higher proportion of cases than complaints from the public, 70 per cent against 5 per cent. A colleague's complaint usually reaches the GMC through the employer or the responsible officer, often with an internal investigation report attached. So it starts with more weight behind it. The MPTS guidance for tribunals in effect for hearings starting on or after 24 November 2025 treats sexual misconduct as a case type of its own. And the sanctions guidance it replaced had already placed misconduct with colleagues in the same category as misconduct with patients.

The employment law running alongside

Section 26 of the Equality Act 2010 defines harassment to include unwanted conduct of a sexual nature. It covers such conduct where it has the purpose or effect of violating a person's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. Since 26 October 2024, section 40A has required every employer to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of its employees. The duty covers harassment in the course of their employment. The Employment Rights Act 2025 provides for further changes. They include a duty to take all reasonable steps and a duty not to permit harassment by third parties. On 23 October 2026 those provisions were not yet in force.

The time limit changed recently. From 1 October 2026, section 123 of the Equality Act 2010 gives a claimant six months to bring an employment tribunal claim. The six months start with the date of the act complained of. The tribunal may allow a longer period where it considers that equitable. Before that date the limit was three months. The commencement regulations, SI 2026/954, apply the six month limit only where the act complained of, or the last act in a series, took place on or after 1 October 2026, so the three month limit still governs earlier events.

These duties give your employer a reason to act firmly and quickly, and to show that it has done so. You may also employ staff yourself, as a partner in a practice or the owner of a clinic. If so, you may face the claim as respondent as well as the GMC case as registrant.

Where doctors lose these cases

Most of the damage happens early. A doctor called to an informal meeting gives an unprepared account. Or they apologise in terms that read as an admission, or contact the complainant to clear the air. Each of these appears later in the investigation report and then in the GMC bundle. When I sat as a judge, the documents written closest to the events carried the most weight. The same is true before a case examiner.

How Eloquia helps

We act on the employer process, the GMC case and the employment claim, so that one account runs through all three. A specialist barrister is involved from the outset, and every fee includes their work. Defence of an employment tribunal claim starts from £15,000 plus VAT. A GMC investigation to the Rule 7 stage costs £9,500 plus VAT. We quote expert fees and other expenses separately. Our page on inquests and NHS disciplinary processes covers the employer side. Our page on GMC investigations covers the regulatory case. You will find every fixed fee, each stated plus VAT, on our fees and funding page.

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

Concerns from employers and colleagues reach every regulator, and what you write in reply may travel further than you expect. The NMC's rules and the GOC's rules both allow your written representations to be shown to the person who made the allegation for comment, and the GCC shares your response with the person who raised the concern. The HCPC says it does not give your response to the person who raised the concern, but it may notify your employer and ask it for information directly. Write every response on the assumption that the complainant will read it. Our pages for nurses and midwives, HCPC professionals, optometrists and dispensing opticians and chiropractors explain each process.

Sources

  1. Good medical practice 2024, Domain 3: Colleagues, culture and safety, paragraphs 56 to 59, GMC
  2. Maintaining personal and professional boundaries, GMC, paragraphs 18, 19 and 33
  3. Fitness to practise statistics 2023, GMC, paragraph 29
  4. Sanctions guidance for medical practitioners tribunals, MPTS and GMC, in use from 5 February 2024 to 23 November 2025, paragraph 149
  5. Equality Act 2010, section 26 (harassment)
  6. Equality Act 2010, section 40A (employer duty to prevent sexual harassment), inserted by the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023
  7. Equality Act 2010, section 123 (time limits), as amended by the Employment Rights Act 2025 from 1 October 2026 (SI 2026/954)
  8. No crackdown on surgeons accused of sexually assaulting colleagues until January 2024, i news (2013 version covered patients only)
  9. Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 5 and Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/954, regulations 3 and 4
  10. Guidance for MPTS tribunals, published 30 September 2025, in effect for hearings starting on or after 24 November 2025, MPTS
  11. GMC: Insurance, indemnity and medico-legal support for doctors
  12. Nursing and Midwifery Council (Fitness to Practise) Rules 2004, consolidated text
  13. General Optical Council (Fitness to Practise) Rules Order of Council 2013
  14. GCC: The investigation process
  15. HCPC: What our investigation would involve