Landmark ruling means all disciplinary decisions can be re-examined
Health professionals who are cleared of wrongdoing by their regulators can have their cases referred to court by the Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals, a High Court judge has ruled. Another
judge has rejected a CRHP appeal in the case of a nurse who was not
struck off.
The first ruling means that professionals who are found not guilty of
misconduct could face re-examination of their cases. Even decisions not
to refer cases to disciplinary committees could be reopened in court.
Considering a CRHP appeal against a General Medical Council ruling that
a doctor was not guilty of misconduct, Mr Justice Leveson ruled that
the decision could be appealed under Section 29(4) of the National Health
Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002. He rejected argument
that the CRHP’s appeal power was restricted to unduly lenient disciplinary
decisions and did not extend to not guilty findings. He said: “The
intention of Parliament is to provide the CRHP with the widest powers
to oversee the activities of each of the regulatory bodies brought under
its umbrella. With one exception, no aspect of the work of these bodies
is exempt from investigation, recommendation and report and, potentially
in relation to the rules of the body, direction.”
Mandie Lavin, Royal Pharmaceutical Society director of legal affairs
and fitness to practise, said: “What the CRHP is doing is entirely
legitimate and in the public interest. Leniency extends, not only to
a finding of professional misconduct but also to an acquittal. The extent
to which the CRHP could reinvestigate a case or introduce new evidence
will need to be clarified.”
Gordon Appelbe, secretary of the Pharmacy Law and Ethics Association,
said Section 29 of the Act made it clear that the CRHP’s right
of appeal against disciplinary decisions in relation to pharmacy was
restricted to final decisions of the Society’s Statutory Committee.
In the second case, a nurse who had been cautioned, rather than struck
off, after accessing pornography while on duty can remain on the nursing
register. Mr Justice Collins said that the penalty was lenient, but that
the test set by the Act was one of undue leniency. |
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