Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals Consultation

disclosure of personal data is required. This is for the purposes of section 31(1)
of the Data Protection Act 1995, which sets out the disclosures required by law
made in connection with legal proceedings. Some also provide that if the
information is not supplied within 14 days or any longer period which the Council
may specify, the Council may seek an order of the relevant court. 34
8.41 Once the information has been acquired, there is no barrier to such information
being shared internally. For example between the Registrar and the Investigation
Committee, and the Investigation Committee and the Fitness to Practise Panel
even if for example the patients from whom the information has been obtained
object to this disclosure. In such cases there is no obligation to obtain an order of
the court. However, these statutory provisions must be read subject to any Article
8 rights of the patients in question. Thus any disclosure must be considered in
the light of the case as a whole, pursue legitimate objectives, and be lawful and
necessary in a democratic society. 35
Provisional view
8.42 The Investigation Committee is a central part of current fitness to practise
procedures. Most of the regulators are required to establish an Investigation
Committee and there are detailed rules governing how they are constituted and
how they should operate. At some regulators all cases must be referred to the
Committee. However, it is not evident that the establishment of a specific
committee to carry out investigations always represents the most efficient or
effective way of organising investigations. This appears to be reflected by the
development of case examiners and to a lesser degree screeners (see earlier
discussion), who perform some of the functions normally associated with an
Investigation Committee.
8.43 Furthermore, the costs of taking a case to an Investigation Committee can be
significant. For example, the General Dental Council has estimated that it costs
£1500 per case (which includes the costs of the meeting itself and the cost of
staff resource to prepare the case) and that cases referred take approximately six
months to get to an Investigation Committee. 36 We welcome views on the
effectiveness or otherwise of the Investigation Committee structure. As set out in
Part 4, our provisional view is that the regulators should be given a power, but
would not be required, to establish a central Investigation Committee.
8.44 Under our proposed structure, each regulator would be able to delegate its
investigative function to the Registrar (who would have further powers to delegate
this function), any other individual (such as a member of staff, professional or a
lay person) or a committee/panel consisting of two or more persons. This would
enable the regulators to establish a range of different investigative structures
such as:
34 For example, Pharmacy Order 2010, SI 2010 No 231, art 49(3) and (4).
35 General Dental Council v Savery [2011] EWHC 3011 (Admin).
36
General Dental Council, Fitness to Practise – Operational, Policy and Legislative Change
(2011) para 20.
145