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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.
How does this power to appeal help to protect the public?
Ask yourself? "Would I want to be treated by a dentist who has been convicted of possessing large amounts of child pornography?"
The original General Dental Council panel decision we appealed imposed a 12-month suspension on the dentist. This meant that he would be returning to practice while still on the sex offenders register, and before the completion of the sexual offenders’ treatment programme. The judge agreed with us that this was inadequate to protect the public and the dentist was struck off.
Ask yourself? "Would I want a member of my family to be treated by a paramedic who deliberately targeted a vulnerable young woman and groomed her?'"
We appealed the original Health and Care Professions Council panel decision as we believed the panel had not brought charges to address all of the health and care professional’s potential misconduct, nor addressed his potential for having groomed the patient once he became aware of her particular vulnerabilities. The judge allowed our appeal and remitted the case to the HCPC for a fresh hearing with new charges.
Ask yourself? "Would I want to work with a doctor who made a mistake ..."
'Would I want to work with a doctor who made a mistake during surgery, covered it up, falsified the notes, subjecting their patient to an unnecessary operation to correct the first mistake and making their colleagues part of the deception?'
The original decision found no impairment - our appeal resulted in the Court imposing a warning which will be published on the GMC register.
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.
Get a personal perspective of why our power to appeal matters in this blogCase studies highlighting our power to appeal fitness to practise decsions
Read through our case studies demonstrating how our power to check and appeal fitness to practise decisions adds value and contributes to public protection.