General Medical Council

The complainant requested details of the number of complaints to the General Medical Council against a particular doctor and the dates of those complaints. The request was refused, except for the details of a complaint which had already been disclosed at a public hearing. The public authority claimed that the information was exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) as it was the personal data of the doctor in question and that to release the information would breach the data protection principles. The Commissioner found that the exemption contained in section 40 was correctly applied and that therefore the public authority was right to withhold the information requested.