R (British Medical Association) v General Medical Council
[2026] EWCA Civ 143
27 Feb 2026
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In R (British Medical Association) v General Medical Council [2026] EWCA Civ 143, the GMC successfully defended its decision to use the term “medical professionals” in its guidance document, Good Medical Practice, to refer to doctors and also to Physician Associates (PAs) and Anaesthesia Associates (AAs)-- the professions it started to regulate in December 2024. The Court rejected the BMA’s arguments that the use of the term was unlawful because it ran counter to the GMC’s over-arching objective of protecting the public, was likely to confuse patients and may lead PAs and AAs to describe themselves in ways which breached the criminal prohibition on the use of certain terms (such as “physician” or “medical practitioner”) contained in the Medical Act.
The Court held that the GMC’s purpose in subjecting PAs and AAs to the same standards as doctors was in proper pursuit of the GMC’s over-arching objective and that, unlike a number of other titles, the term “medical professionals” was neither defined nor protected by the Medical Act. Part of the BMA’s challenge was that the adoption of the term “medical professionals” involved a misdirection in law by the GMC and that this amounted to a free-standing ground of judicial review. Coulson LJ (for the Court) disagreed:
“The law of judicial review is not hermetically sealed. But neither should it be allowed to become the Wild West, with every case being decided afresh on newly-minted principles. The law of precedent generally, and the law and practice of judicial review in particular, requires there to be some form of solid foundation for any judicial review challenge. What is the test to be applied? What is the legal basis for the challenge?”
The BMA had previously argued in the High Court that the GMC had also acted unlawfully in drafting and applying the same guidance in Good Medical Practice to doctors, PAs and AAs. That argument was not renewed by the BMA in its appeal and was rejected at first instance by Lambert J.
Ivan Hare KC represented the GMC.
The judgments are available here (High Court) and here (Court of Appeal).
