Sir Donald Hamilton Irvine CBE (2 June 1935 – 19 November 2018) was a British general practitioner (GP) who was president of the General Medical Council (GMC) between 1995 and 2002, during a time when there were a number of high-profile medical failure cases in the UK, including the Alder Hey organs scandal, the Bristol heart scandal and The Shipman Inquiry.

[2] At the age of ten, during a holiday in Edinburgh, he developed rheumatic fever,[1] and subsequently spent one year of his childhood in hospital,[2] where he was cared for by paediatrician Charles McNeil.

He was also affected by the poor public perception of general practice in the 1950s, reflected in Winston Churchill's physician, Lord Moran's words in 1958... "that it was the place doctors landed when they fell off the hospital ladder".

[3] In his mid-thirties, and having also academically achieved a DObst in 1960, an MD from Newcastle in 1964 and a FRCGP in 1972,[1] he was the third person to be appointed honorary secretary of the council of the College, serving for seven years before stepping down in 1978.

[6] He continued as one of two secretarys for the RCGP led Joint Committee on Postgraduate General Practice Training, with Irvine as its lead.

[1][6] Recognising the poor standards in general practice, he led a study that included most of the northern region GPs and hospital paediatricians.

[1] Between 1982 and 1985, he served as the chairman of the RCGP council,[4] where he introduced the "quality initiative" which encouraged GPs to assess their day-to-day care in their own practices.

[7] Irvine chaired the GMC committee on professional standards and ethics[3] and has been credited for his drive "to make medical regulation in the UK more patient centred".

[4][9] In the 1990s, a number of high-profile cases of medical failures had come to public attention during his tenure and had unsettling relations between doctors and their patients.

[10] On 18 June 1998 at a disciplinary hearing, Irvine told two paediatric heart surgeons and the chief executive of the United Bristol National Health Service (NHS) Trust, that they were guilty of serious professional misconduct.

[2] He set out to define what good practice should be, focussing on protecting patients,[2] and clarified that it was not justifiable to blame these scandals on individuals, but there needed to be acknowledgement of "inherent cultural flaws in the medical profession"..."excessive paternalism"...and a "lack of respect for patients" resulting in "secrecy and complacency about poor practice".

[15][16] The GMC finally agreed to ask the government for legislation to introduce revalidation, and subsequently Irvine stepped down 10 months early in 2002.

[2] In 2003, Irvine described "partnerships with patients, and accountability rather than professional autonomy ... teamwork rather than individualism, collective as well as personal responsibility, transparency rather than secrecy, empathetic communication and above all respect for others".

[20] In this account, he highlighted the importance of role models, his concern over the influence of hospital consultants and the standing of the British Medical Association.