Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals Consultation

Option 2: consolidation of the existing framework
7.31 Our reforms could establish a single framework for determining impaired fitness
to practise based on the existing two-stage approach. The statute would first set
out a list of statutory grounds of impaired fitness to practise which would apply to
all the regulators. This list would consist of the following grounds:
(1) misconduct;
(2) deficient professional performance;
(3) a criminal conviction or caution (and certain court determinations other
than a complete acquittal); 38
(4) a determination by another health or social care regulator (including by
the relevant safeguarding body) to the effect that a person’s fitness to
practise is impaired; or
(5) physical or mental health problems.
7.32 The list would include allegations based on a matter alleged to have occurred
outside the UK or at a time when the person was not registered. We welcome
further views on this list, including whether it is sufficiently comprehensive.
7.33 The above list has been constructed by consolidating the existing statutory
grounds across the regulators and simplifying the language. One of the difficulties
in constructing such a list is that some of the statutory grounds, mainly in relation
to convictions, vary across the regulators. For example, not all of governing
legislation includes absolute discharge and conditional offers under the Criminal
Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 or penalties as alternative to prosecution under
the Social Security Administration Act 1992. It would be possible to build some
degree of flexibility by allowing the regulators to make rules specifying different
types of convictions or other disposals. However, we believe that all of the
matters listed above should be taken into account by the regulators when
considering allegations. Our provisional view is that the same list should apply to
all the regulators and that the regulators should not have powers to vary the
grounds. However, we welcome further views on this point.
7.34 We also welcome views on whether the list of non-conviction disposals should be
expanded to cover for example fixed penalty notices in contexts other than social
security fraud such as for theft and public disorder offences.
7.35 Furthermore, we also welcome views on how adequate the powers of the
regulators are to require disclosures from the Independent Safeguarding
Authority and Disclosure Scotland. Currently, the legislation requires disclosure
by the relevant safeguarding authority about whether a registrant is barred or not,
and if so the information relied upon to bar the individual. It has been suggested
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