The report, covering 2025 and outlining priorities for 2026, assesses the regulator's performance against targets set in 2021.
The GMC reports 'continued progress on all fairer employer referrals indicators, with forecasts suggesting the regulator is 'close to achieving our targets at the end of 2026.' The percentage of designated bodies showing evidence of disproportionality in fitness to practise referrals by ethnicity or place of qualification has fallen from 5.6% (2016-2020) to 2.4% (2021-2025).
The gap in referral rates between ethnic minority and white doctors has also narrowed from 0.28% to 0.10%. While the GMC acknowledges these improvements result from system-wide efforts, it notes that a five-year rolling analysis means recent interventions may not yet be fully reflected in the data.
Progress under the Fair Training Cultures (FTC) programme, which has a longer timeframe to 2031, is less clear-cut. While postgraduate specialty training shows positive signs - with exam pass rate gaps narrowing for both UK ethnic minority and internationally qualified doctors - the early years of medical education are worsening.
The undergraduate assessment pass rate gap between white and ethnic minority students increased by 0.7 percentage points between 2021 and 2023. Worryingly, the 'preparedness gap' for Foundation Year 1 doctors has risen by 4.5 percentage points since 2019, with the proportion of Black and ethnic minority respondents feeling prepared falling by 12.5%, compared to 4.4% of white respondents.
As an employer, the GMC met its target of 20% of its workforce being from an ethnic minority background in 2025, but it concedes that meeting its management-level representation target is unlikely, with the current management profile at 14.1% ethnic minority staff - 4.9 percentage points behind the interim 2025 target.
GMC Chief Executive Charlie Massey says: ‘These are long-standing and deep-rooted issues that can only be addressed by continued and concerted action. In the years since we set these challenging targets, we have seen tangible improvements, but there remains much more to do.
‘There needs to be a redoubling of efforts to address lingering unfairness and inequality. For doctors to be able provide the best possible care for their patients, they must have supportive workplaces where they feel they belong, regardless of their background.'
Looking ahead to 2026, the GMC calls for coordinated action from governments, health system leaders and education providers, emphasising the need to embed anti-racism requirements, mandate enhanced induction for international medical graduates and scale up evidence-based interventions like mentoring and targeted educator training.
Responding to the report, Caroline Waterfield, director of workforce supply and employment practice at NHS Employers, said: 'No one should come to work in the NHS and experience discrimination – tackling it is a priority for employers and partners in the system.
'The work the GMC has been progressing, with employers, is welcome and while progress has been made there is more to do.
'NHS Employers will work with the GMC and employers to eliminate disproportionate referrals to the GMC fitness to practise process. It will be critical to ensure that there is a way to sustain the progress made into the future.'
The full report can be read here.
