Sussex University vice-chancellor joins General Medical Council

The man in charge of Sussex University has been chosen as one of the 12 members of the new slimline General Medical Council (GMC).

Michael Farthing, 64, will take up his post with the medical profession’s regulator from Tuesday 1 January.

His appointment was welcomed at the monthly board meeting of the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust board yesterday (Monday 10 December).

Professor Farthing is a director of the trust which runs the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

He joins the GMC as medical registration undergoes another round of the reforms prompted in the main by the Harold Shipman scandal.

Shipman was a serial killer and in 2000 he became the first and only doctor in Britain to be found guilty of murdering his patients.

Ten years ago the GMC had 104 members of its governing council. In 2003 the number was cut to 35 members and in 2009 to 24 members.

From the new year there will be just 12 – half of them lay members and the other half drawn from the medical profession.

Professor Farthing is a gastroenterologist and medical researcher who became the vice-chancellor of Sussex University five years ago.

He sits on the board of the Brighton and Sussex Medical School as well as the local hospital trust.

The GMC was set up in 1858 and registers Britain’s 250,000 doctors to practise medicine. Its purpose is to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine.

This includes overseeing medical education – and Professor Farthing has previously served on the GMC’s Education Committee as well as having been principal of St George’s medical school in London.