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· The Society
Letters to the Editor
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Regulation
Will the Society please answer these questions?
From Mr P. Melnick, MRPharmS
It would appear that the director of fitness to practise and legal affairs
was either unable or unwilling to reply to my request
for more information about regulation by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (PJ, 10 June, p679).
The President of the Society replied to me in her stead. Unfortunately
Mr Patel’s reply hits all the right political notes but fails to
answer a single one of my questions.
Will anyone at Lambeth please answer the following straightforward questions?
· What are the stringent parameters that it is envisaged Article 54
will operate within?
· How does this Article sit within human rights legislation?
· Who would be responsible for compensating a pharmacist falsely accused
and whose income had been abruptly terminated?
· How will those of us who have been struck off before and some of us
who may have criminal records, but are now back in practice, be viewed
by the fitness to practise committees?
Perry Melnick
Ilford,
Essex
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ANN LEWIS, Secretary and Registrar, Royal Pharmaceutical
Society, responds:
Article 54 of the draft Order provides that an interim
Order may only be made where it is necessary for the protection of
the public, otherwise
necessary in the public interest, or in the interests of the pharmacist.
Identical provisions can be found in the legislation of other health
care regulators. The jurisdiction of statutory committees concerned
with the regulation of health
care professionals to impose such orders where necessary is now well established.
Interim Orders have been considered by the High Court on a number of occasions
now. In terms of “human rights”, two issues are relevant: the right
to a fair trial (Article 6[1]) and the right to property (Article 1 of the First
Protocol) set out in the European Convention of Human Rights. In Madan
(No 2) v General Medical Council [2001] Lloyds Rep. Med 539, it was held that it was
incumbent on the GMC’s Professional Conduct Committee to (a) balance
the need to protect the public against the consequences which the order would
have
on the practitioner, and (b) ensure that the consequences were not disproportionate
to the risk from which it was seeking to protect the public.
As part of their induction and training, all members of the new committees
will receive training on the principles to be applied and the relevant case
law.
The draft Pharmacist and Pharmacy Technicians Order does not empower the
Society to make compensation in cases where an interim order is imposed and
where the
pharmacist’s fitness to practise is subsequently found not to be impaired.
The risk of a complaint being made and the possibility of an interim order
being made while that complaint is investigated are risks inherent in the nature
of
modern professional practice. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians would be
well advised to take out insurance against this possibility. Article 38 of
the draft
Order does, in fact, require all practising pharmacists to have in place appropriate
professional indemnity arrangements.
Previous convictions or findings of misconduct may be considered by the committee
where they are relevant to the matter under investigation. Any findings of
dishonesty, for example, will be relevant when the committee considers the
pharmacist’s
credibility in the event of a factual dispute. |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal