CHRE recommends audit of Society’s Infringements Committee
External auditing of decision-making by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Infringements Committee has been suggested by the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence.
The 2005 annual performance review report compiled from a questionnaire
completed by the Society at the request of the CHRE was discussed at
the council’s meeting last week. It also suggests that the Society
should consider collecting statistical information on complaints against
pharmacists as they progress through the fitness to practise procedures.
This could help the Society identify learning points to help prevent
similar incidents recurring through feedback in preregistration education,
training or guidance.
Overall, the review identifies many areas of good practice within the
Society’s systems, including its consultation on the Code of Ethics
for pharmacy technicians, modification of the preregistration training
handbook in the light of a recent Statutory Committee case and its plan
to link work on competencies to the preregistration programme, and the
CPD scheme and its postgraduate programme.
Weaknesses identified include the current fitness to practise procedures,
which are less modern than those of many other regulators.
The report says that the Society is aware of this deficiency and that
it has been seeking changes to the underpinning legislation through an
Order under Section 60 of the Health Act 1999. Major deficiencies identified
by the Society include the lack of a health committee to deal with cases
of impaired fitness to practise due to illness, a limited range of disciplinary
sanctions and the absence of any power of interim suspension.
Mandie Lavin, the Society’s director of fitness to practise and
legal affairs, said: “We will be incorporating auditing of decisions
into the business plan for 2006 and will explore ways of ensuring consistency,
proportionality and fairness. This will be supplemented by ongoing training
of Council and committee members, refinement of referral criteria and
engagement with stakeholders and the public to ensure public and professional
confidence in complaints handling.”
She said that the complaints procedure would be made more transparent
with more information posted on the Society’s website and statistical
data in its annual review.
The performance review report was to be considered by the CHRE on 12
May. It is accessible as a PDF file (120K). |
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