History of medical regulation in the United Kingdom
Medical regulation ensures that medicine is only practised by qualified and suitable people and can be used to prevent competition and increase financial compensation. The history of regulating doctors in the UK dates back around 600 years. The earliest licensing procedures were administered by the Church, with professional associations and universities also playing a role. Modern regulation of doctors is carried out by the General Medical Council. Early licensing The earliest reference to medical regulation in the UK dates from 1421, when physicians petitioned parliament to ask that nobody without appropriate qualifications be allowed to practise medicine. The doctors said that unqualified practitioners caused "great harm and slaughter of many men". Despite agreement in principle from parliament, little more appeared to happen until 1511, when a statute placed regulation of the medical profession in the hands of the bishops. John Raach wrote that "the Church was apparently considered the one institution whose influence was extensive and potent enough to be effective in suppressing quacks and licensing the members of the medical profession". Raach further suggested that as a learned profession, medicine "could not be relegated to regulation by the average county official". Clerics, often the most highly educated members of