How the CRHP is challenging disciplinary decisions
Two disciplinary decisions have already been to the High Court by the Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals using its powers under Section 29 of the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002, the Society's Council heard at the February
Council meeting.
Jane Wesson, chairman of the CRHP, told the Council that Section 29 gave
the CRHP a specific power to review and to scrutinise decisions of regulatory
bodies in disciplinary proceedings and to refer to the High Court those
that were seen as both unduly lenient and contrary to public safety.
The two cases (neither of which concerned the Society) currently going
through the High Court would be learning tools on how to exercise that
power.
What was more fruitful from Section 29 was the feedback from the scrutiny
of the cases that had not gone so far as the High Court. Any recurring
themes would be reported back to the CRHP and, more importantly, would
be fed back into the regulatory bodies so that they could deal with any
specific issues around parts of their disciplinary processes. That would
reduce the need to use the Section 29 power.
Mrs Wesson assured the Council that the CRHP would not use its power
in a draconian way. It was a learning tool, and the CRHP would work with
regulators to improve and professionalise the disciplinary processes.
It wanted its work to be open and transparent.
Opening her talk, Mrs Wesson said that the CRHP consisted of 19 people — a
lay chair, nine lay members and nine members who represented regulatory
bodies. The latter were, by convention, presidents of the relevant regulatory
body.
The council had been set up to promote the interests of patients and
the public by working to ensure greater consistency between regulatory
bodies and by reviewing and instituting best practice. But there was
absolutely no way forward in suggesting that one size fitted all. The
spectrum of work of health care professionals was huge. The CRHP needed
to find out and understand the regulatory bodies’ differences in
practice and procedure. Differences that had no purpose had to be eradicated
and those that served a purpose had to be explained to the outside world.
The CRHP was looking for best practice so that it could share it. From
a scoping study put in hand at the end of 2003 to collect information
from all the regulators it was already clear that the Society offered
an example of good practice in terms of access for complainants. The
Society’s practice of taking complaints over the telephone rather
than insisting on them all being written down was hugely forward thinking
in terms of people who had difficulties of access. Other regulators required
complaints to be made in triplicate and signed in blood!
The CRHP now had a director, Sandy Forrest, and a small staff. The intention
was to stay small, focused and flexible, and able to pick up the issues
important to regulation that might change with time or as the result
of events such as the Shipman case. They wanted CRHP to be seen as a
catalyst for change, able to co-ordinate change and bring it together
in the interests of the public in a way that had not previously been
driven forward in a co-ordinated way.
The CRHP also wanted to be an exemplar for others within the field in
the way in which it worked. It would look beyond regulation of health
care for good ways of working and good regulation. The target was for
health care regulation in the UK to be a world leader.
A refinement of the feedback mechanisms meant that the Society would
receive regular feedback on what was happening so that it would understand
the thought processes. Where possible, the Society’s Council, with
others, would be engaged in the dynamic process of moving change forward.
If the Council flagged up priorities, they would be debated and dealt
with as priorities and put back out for the regulators to consider.
The CRHP wanted to be co-operative and transparent, working with the
regulators to deliver what the public was entitled to expect, which was
good service, and, over time, to raise the profile of professionalism,
both to the members and to the public.
It also wanted to achieve a greater understanding of what regulation
was about. What protected patients were the standards that the professions
internalised. They did not do that through the disciplinary process but
through all the other things that regulatory bodies did from selecting,
through training and through support development to what was to be hoped
to be an honourable retirement. That was where the CRHP wanted to put
its effort and it could do that in partnership with the regulators.
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