GPhC consultation on Investigating Committee guidance

Background

We welcome the General Pharmaceutical Council’s efforts to draft a document that is in plain English and accessible to a range of readers. As it stands, however the guidance may be both too simplified to be useful to the Committee and too technical to be accessible to others. Our response assumes that the GPhC is not intending to publish separate pieces of guidance for the different parties involved, as follows:

• Guidance for Investigating Committee (IC) members, describing the role and remit of the Committee and its members, and the procedures it must follow (with reference to the supporting legislation). This guidance would need to provide the level of detail necessary to the Committee in the language it has to use in its proceedings.
• Accessible guidance for professionals who are the subject of a fitness to practise allegation explaining the process from their point of view and what is expected of them.
• Accessible guidance for complainants and witnesses who may be involved in the process setting out the process from their point of view and what is expected of them.