Fitness to Practise appeals - why our power of appeal matters

The difference our power to check and appeal fitness to practise makes to public protection

Driving up standards in fitness to practise panel decision-making

Our fitness to practise process ensures that regulators make good decisions to keep the public safe and has helped to drive up standards in decision-making. 

Protecting the public

A healthcare professional currently not fit to practise poses a significant risk to the public and could go on to treat or care for 1,000 patients over a year. Removing, or restricting them from practice reduces that risk. Our independent oversight also ensures the public interest is represented and counterbalances the health and care professional’s right of appeal in the process.

Creating case law to help clarify the process

Our double-check of the regulators' final fitness to practise decisions has helped to drive up standards in decision-making and recording by regulators, including through the learning points we feedback.

Another benefit is that our appeals have created a body of case law that has helped to clarify the purpose of the fitness to practise process. 

A bird’s eye view across the regulators

We can use the intelligence and data to identify emerging themes. We can then delve deeper into the details. For example, we noticed that panels were treating sexual misconduct with colleagues less seriously than with patients. The panels believed that this type of misconduct would not put the public at risk – we disagreed and did some in-depth research. We then shared our findings with the regulators, system regulators and other key stakeholders to help improve regulation. 

Read some short snapshots below of where our power to appeal has made a difference as well as links to case studies which show our power of appeal in practice.

These are all cases where our appeal was upheld - if we had not appealed all these registrants would either have returned to practise or had no warnings entered on to the register.