Does the GMC owe doctors a duty of care? Family takes landmark case to Supreme Court

The family of a consultant anaesthetist who died by suicide hours after being notified of a General Medical Council investigation is seeking permission to take a potentially significant legal challenge to the Supreme Court.

The case concerns Dr Sridharan Suresh, a consultant anaesthetist from County Durham who died on 2 May 2018 after receiving an email from the GMC informing him that it had opened an investigation into his fitness to practise and that his case was being referred to an Interim Orders Tribunal.

At the centre of the legal dispute is a question with potentially much wider implications for the medical profession: whether the regulator responsible for protecting patients and maintaining standards within medicine also owes a common law duty of care to doctors while investigating them.

Dr Suresh had been interviewed by police following an allegation that he had sexually assaulted a 15-year-old patient while she was sedated. He denied wrongdoing, and the criminal investigation was subsequently discontinued after it was determined that there was insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction. Dr Suresh was never found to have committed the alleged offence.

The Court of Appeal judgment records that Dr Suresh had a distinguished and previously unblemished professional record. Evidence subsequently considered by the courts also showed that identification information provided to police was inconsistent with him being the perpetrator.

His employer had not referred him to the GMC, but the police made a third-party referral. According to the BMA, both the police and hospital trust were aware of the referral but neither initially informed Dr Suresh, with each apparently believing the other would do so.

On the afternoon of 2 May 2018, the GMC emailed Dr Suresh confirming that an investigation had been opened and informing him that an Interim Orders Tribunal hearing had been arranged. Court documents record that he was deeply concerned about the potential effect of the investigation on his career and the possibility that proceedings could continue for years.

Later that afternoon he left the family home. His body was subsequently found in the River Tees. An inquest held in 2020 recorded his cause of death as suicide.

His widow and children later brought legal proceedings against the GMC, arguing that its acts or omissions caused or contributed to his death. Their negligence claim argued that the regulator should have taken reasonable care to avoid actions that could foreseeably cause psychiatric injury and should have taken reasonable steps to minimise that risk.

Among the arguments advanced by the family were that the GMC should have considered whether Dr Suresh had already been informed of the referral, whether a risk assessment had taken place and whether appropriate support was available to him. They also challenged aspects of the tone and content of the communication informing him of the investigation.

The GMC denied liability and argued that it did not owe an individual doctor a common law duty of care when carrying out its statutory fitness-to-practise functions.

The family’s claim was struck out by the High Court in April 2025. The court concluded that recognising the proposed duty of care would be inconsistent with the statutory framework under which the GMC investigates concerns about doctors and could create tension with the regulator’s responsibilities when deciding what action was necessary.

However, the judge found that, considered separately, the question of whether psychiatric harm or suicide had been reasonably foreseeable would have been an issue capable of going to trial. The negligence claim nevertheless failed because the court concluded that the necessary duty of care did not exist.

Dr Suresh’s family appealed, but the Court of Appeal dismissed the challenge in July 2026. Lord Justice Bean concluded that although investigations can be lengthy, complex and cause considerable distress, the law does not impose the type of duty of care claimed by the family on investigators or statutory regulators carrying out these functions.

The family is now seeking permission to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court, with continued support from the British Medical Association.

The BMA argues that the case raises an important issue for doctors because of the considerable psychological impact a regulatory investigation can have, including in cases where allegations ultimately result in no further action.

BMA council deputy chair Dr Emma Runswick said being referred to the GMC was something doctors could find profoundly distressing, particularly because an investigation can affect both a doctor’s professional career and their personal life even where allegations are subsequently found not to justify further action.

The wider issue of doctors’ wellbeing during fitness-to-practise proceedings has concerned the GMC itself for more than a decade. The regulator previously commissioned an independent review of cases involving doctors who died by suicide while undergoing investigations between 2005 and 2013 and subsequently asked suicide-prevention expert Professor Louis Appleby to advise on reducing the impact and stress of the process.

Changes introduced following that work included carrying out formal investigations only where necessary, providing doctors with a single point of contact, changing the way the GMC communicates with doctors and creating specialist arrangements for doctors who are unwell. The regulator also introduced a process allowing an investigation to be paused in some circumstances while a seriously unwell doctor receives treatment.

Those measures demonstrate an important distinction at the heart of the current case. The GMC recognises that fitness-to-practise investigations can cause significant stress and has taken steps intended to reduce that impact. The legal question is whether that responsibility should extend to a legally enforceable duty of care owed to the individual doctor.

There are competing considerations. The GMC’s primary statutory role is to protect patients and maintain public confidence in the medical profession, and regulators must be able to investigate serious allegations without the threat of negligence claims preventing or distorting legitimate regulatory action.

For doctors, however, a fitness-to-practise investigation can have profound consequences long before any allegation has been established. It can affect someone’s ability to work, professional reputation, finances and relationships while creating uncertainty that can continue for months or years.

The Supreme Court has not yet agreed to hear the case. Dr Suresh’s family has applied for permission to appeal, meaning the UK’s highest court must first decide whether the case should proceed.

If permission is granted, the eventual judgment could have implications extending beyond the circumstances of one doctor’s death. It could help determine where the legal responsibility of a professional regulator ends when the process designed to protect the public creates a foreseeable risk of serious harm to the professional being investigated.

For Dr Suresh’s family, that question has already taken eight years to reach this point. For the wider medical profession, the answer could help define the relationship between doctors and their regulator for years to come.

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