RADICAL reform is on the way for the much-criticised General Medical Council in the wake of scandals such as that involving disgraced surgeon Richard Neale.

The GMC's dual role as prosecutor and judge of bad doctors is to be scrapped following an internal review.

The organisation has been stung into making changes by a number of high-profile cases including that of consultant gynaecologist Richard Neale, who worked in Northallerton, North Yorkshire.

And earlier this year, the GMC was heavily criticised when the British Medical Association passed a vote of no confidence in the organisation. BMA chairman Dr Ian Bogle said at the time: "It lets doctors continue practising when it shouldn't."

Now a GMC working party is recommending that a new "hearings agency" should be set up to manage the staff involved in determining the cases brought before its professional conduct committee.

As part of the changes, GMC members involved in preparing cases against doctors will no longer be allowed to sit on committees that determine the outcome of cases.

The proposals are a reaction to criticism from doctors that the dual role makes hearings unfair and from patients that the system acts as a "cosy club" to protect the profession.

In the Richard Neale case, the GMC had allowed him to continue to work at the Friarage Hospital, in Northallerton, even though he had earlier been removed from the Canadian register after the death of patient.

He was finally struck off by the GMC in July - but only after a long and sustained campaign by former patients whose operations he had botched.

The working party's report, submitted to the GMC yesterday, said: "Roles are blurred. The two groups of functions should be clearly separated, moving forward in the spirit, as well as the letter, of the European Convention on Human Rights."

A major overhaul of the whole structure of the beleaguered GMC is also recommended, scrapping its 104-member council and replacing it with a smaller board and larger standing conference.

The report will go to consultation later this year.

Last night, the changes came in for criticism from the spokesman for Richard Neale's North Yorkshire patients.

"Any change at all is a definite plus - but these just don't go far enough," said Graham Maloney. "What happened in the Neale case was unacceptable, and that's not really been recognised in the changes they are talking about.

"The GMC needs to be far more open, and feelings about it at the moment are at an all-time low.