The president of the General Medical Council, who recently criticised doctors for dragging their feet over reforms, looked isolated yesterday after professional groups agreed to bypass his ideas for change.

Turning the tables on Sir Donald Irvine, a new alliance between the British Medical Association - the doctors' trade union - and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said that the GMC reform plans were bureaucratic.

Ian Bogle, chairman of the BMA, said: "The profession has been calling for reform of the GMC for many years. Recent cases of professional incompetence, malpractice, and, worse still, criminal behaviour, have strengthened our case.

"Yet the process of the reform and the GMC's own proposals are bogged down in bureaucracy. The public and doctors expect swift action to restore confidence in this regulatory process and now the entire medical profession has come together to agree measures which we believe will restore confidence and end the uncertainty."

The heads of the royal colleges sit on the GMC and were thought to back Sir Donald's plans. The change of alliances is a potential threat to Sir Donald's position.

The BMA and the academy yesterday put forward 11 proposals. They reject the idea of a small executive backed by a 200-strong conference of doctors and lay people to run the GMC. They want to see the present 104-strong council cut to 50 with an executive of only 10 or 15.

The failure to get agreement on a reformed GMC to reassure the public that doctors are being properly policed leaves many wondering whether the government will eventually scrap the GMC and set up a new structure.

In a recent lecture, Sir Donald warned that the public was not convinced they were doing enough to modernise the profession. "The cultural flaws in the medical profession show up as excessive paternalism, lack of respect for patients and their right to make decisions about their care," he said.

A GMC spokesman said yesterday that all the proposals would be incorporated in a consultation document to be brought out next month.

Asked if the new alliance left Sir Donald isolated, he said: "We will have to wait for the conference in February to see that. It consists of people who are not just the BMA or the academy - there are lay members and doctors who are elected in their own right."