Jan-Dec 2025: Health workers and members of the public hold dozens of vigils outside London GMC offices in solidarity with disciplined climate activist doctors

Vigils have taken place outside the GMC offices in London weekly since Dr Patrick Hart was imprisoned for climate protest and then suspended by the GMC in March this year.

The GMC has consistently referred all medical climate activist sentenced to custodial sentences to a medical fitness to practice tribunal, where they have then argued that they should be suspended from the medical register. All three doctors who have faced a tribunal for their participation in peaceful climate activism have been suspended, with Dr Patrick Hart, a GP based in Bristol becoming the first working doctor to be suspended in October this year. Retired GPs Dr Sarah Benn ad Dr Diana Warner were both suspended in 2024.

Health for XR has staged a number of larger protests outside GMC premises both in London and Manchester, timed to coincide with GMC council meetings, while petitions and open letters started by members of the public have received widespread support. BMA members have also voted to support medical climate activists at their annual representative meeting this year, passing two motions condemning the GMC’s approach to these cases, and committing to continue to consider disciplined doctors as “colleagues in good standing”.

The continued failure of the GMC and the MPTS panels to consider the moral context surrounding such cases is deeply concerning and reflects the inability of the medical regulator to respond appropriately to the complex health crises of our time. Although the GMC indulged itself by issuing a belated apology to homosexual doctors disciplined under historical homophobic laws, it is apparent that as an organisation it has learnt nothing from this shameful episode. The inability of the GMC to apply moral nuance in its regulation of an ethical profession is now clear, and its failures are increasingly making the need for a radical re-structuring of the organisation more apparent.

Sign the petition in support of climate activist doctors here.