Fitness-to-practise information to be shared with police
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is to join a scheme for the sharing of information between health care regulators and the police.
At the August
Council meeting, the Council received a recommendation
from the Law and Ethics Committee that the Society should become party
to an information sharing protocol already agreed between the General
Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Association of
Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the
Crown Prosecution Service.
Douglas Simpson, chairman of the Law and Ethics Committee, said that
when the Society is notified that a member has received a criminal conviction,
or may have committed a criminal offence, further information is often
required from the police. The Society has often had difficulty in obtaining
such information in a timely manner.
On behalf of the Society and other regulators, the chief executive of
the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence, Sandy Forrest (a former
policeman), had had a number of meetings with the ACPO to try to reach
a consensus on disclosure. In addition, the GMC, the NMC and the ACPO
had drawn up an information-sharing protocol and had agreed to invite
other health care bodies to join.
Mr Simpson said that the Law and Ethics Committee had considered the
protocol in July and saw no reason to oppose it. It recommended that
the Society should become a party to the protocol.
The Society’s Director of Fitness to Practise and Legal Affairs,
Mandie Lavin, said that although the protocol did not cover Scotland,
a similar document was being worked up to cover that country.
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal