Sources & methodology

Every fact on every page of MedicWatch traces back to a publicly published determination of a UK healthcare regulator. This page explains where the data comes from, how it is processed, and how you can check it.

Sources

MedicWatchaggregates determinations from three UK healthcare regulators’ hearing services:

• Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) — tribunal hearings concerning UK doctors, physician associates, and anaesthesia associates. mpts-uk.org
• Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) — fitness to practise hearings concerning UK nurses, midwives, and nursing associates. nmc.org.uk
• Dental Professionals Hearings Service (DPHS) — hearings concerning UK dentists and dental care professionals, referred by the General Dental Council. dentalhearings.org

We also link out to the relevant regulator registers (GMC, NMC, GDC) for current registration status. We do not republish or store the registers themselves; we link to them.

How the data is processed

Each determination is read carefully and structured into the same fields: practitioner identity, regulator reference, hearing type and dates, charges, findings, mitigating and aggravating factors, outcome, and sanction duration. A short plain-English summary (50–80 words) is written that is faithful to the regulator’s findings and explicitly attributed to the regulator.

The launch dataset was processed in autumn 2026 by a careful read-through of the full historical archive available at the time. After launch, new determinations are added shortly after they are published, using the same per-document protocol. See how MedicWatch sources its data for more detail.

Faithfulness rules

We follow strict rules to keep the record faithful and useful:

• Every plain-English summary explicitly attributes the finding to the regulator: “The MPTS tribunal found that…”, “The NMC found that…”, or “The GDC tribunal decided that…”.
• We do not characterise or rate practitioners. We do not say a practitioner is “dangerous” or “unsafe” — we report what the regulator found.
• We mirror the regulator’s language without softening or sharpening it. If a regulator uses precise legal language, we preserve it (with brief context where helpful).
• We do not aggregate findings into ratings, scores, or risk numbers.

Why we keep records the regulators eventually remove

The GMC removes erasure records from its register after ten years. The NMC retains only the most recent three months of decisions on its main hearings page. MedicWatchretains the persistent record under the journalism exemption in UK data protection law, because it is a matter of clear public interest that patients should be able to find regulatory history concerning a healthcare professional even after the regulator’s own publication window ends. See the publication time limits and why we keep records longer.

Verifying our data

Every determination page on MedicWatchlinks directly to the source determination on the regulator’s site. If the source page has been removed by the regulator (for example, an NMC outcome that has aged out of the rolling main page), we note this on the page. The structured fields on our pages are exactly what the source determination says — if you spot a discrepancy, please submit a correction.