Updated NHS warning system about dangerous professionals
Warning notices (PDF 120K) about health professionals who are considered
to be a danger to the public are to be issued under a new system to be
introduced
for the NHS in England on 6 December and operated by strategic health
authorities (SHAs).
SHAs, primary care trusts, NHS trusts and special health authorities
will be expected to ask for an alert to be issued about any registered
health professional who has worked for them or in any of the four primary
care services (medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and optometry) if they think
that he or she poses a significant risk of harm to patients, staff or
the public and who might continue to work, or want to do so, in the NHS
in their professional capacity. It will then be for the relevant SHA
to assess the risk and issue an alert if they agree with the request
and consider that there “is a pressing need” to issue an
alert
notice.
Any alerts that are issued will have to be sent to the National Clinical
Assessment Service (part of the National Patient Safety Agency), SHA
chief executives, the chief medical officers for Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland (but not England) and the relevant professional regulator.
Potential employers, such as hospitals and pharmacy contractors, will
only be sent alerts if the issuing SHA chooses to do so. Anyone who receives
an alert will have to store it securely and destroy it when it is revoked — SHAs
will have to consider revocation of any alerts they have issued every
six months.
Individuals who are the subject of an alert will have to be sent a copy
within seven days of its issue. They will also have to be told why the
warning has been issued. Employers will be able to ask whether an alert
has been issued about a potential employee, but the existence of an alert
does not mean that an individual must not be employed.
In a statement, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee said
that contractors will have to consider what safeguards should be put
in place if they want to engage such an individual.
Mandie Lavin, director of fitness to practise and legal affairs at the
Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said that this was an update to an existing
scheme, which the Society welcomed.
“It is very important that systems like this dovetail with professional
fitness-to-practise arrangements.” It would not be helpful if the
NHS, professional regulators and the police followed separate lines of
inquiry, she said. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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