Annex A > Chapter 4 - National Accountabilities and Roles > National regulatory and professional bodies
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National regulatory and professional bodies
83 There is a multiplicity of regulatory, professional and specialist bodies and associations in medicine, nursing and the other healthcare professions. They may set, monitor and enforce standards and support practitioners. This overlap of bodies and of both functions and the responsibilities for these functions is addressed in the following paragraphs.
84 The evidence was that the proliferation of such bodies led to a degree of lack of co-ordination so far as regulation was concerned. Sir Donald Irvine, President of the GMC, told the Inquiry:
`Q. ... if one were to look at the system of regulation as a system involving the GMC, the employer, that is the National Health Service or the Trust as may be the case, and the other regulatory bodies such as the Ombudsman, the court system and so on, would you describe the period from 1984 to 1995, at any rate, as one in which the system was co-ordinated in any way between those regulatory bodies?
`A. Co-ordinated up to a point, but I have expressed my opinion about this in public before. I do not believe the system was as well co-ordinated as it might have been, or should be.' [104]
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