Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals Consultation

9.21 Our proposals would enable the General Medical Council to establish and
maintain their new structure. This in turn raises the question of whether other
regulators should adopt this system. Arguably, it is unjust that doctors have
access to a more independent fitness to practise adjudication process, while
other professionals do not. However, establishing such a system would have
significant cost implications and is therefore a matter for each regulator to decide.
9.22 Nonetheless, it is important for the new legal framework to allow for the
development of future policy and enable the regulators to develop a new
adjudication system along the lines of that proposed by the General Medical
Council, or indeed any other new system which enhances the independence of
fitness to practise adjudication. It is also possible that, in time, the Medical
Practitioners Tribunal Service could be used by the other regulators in order to
“realise the benefits of increased independence, consistency and economies of
scale”. 17
9.23 It may also be possible that in the future other regulators may develop
adjudication processes that other regulators may want to use in order to realise
these benefits. In Part 12, we therefore propose that the statute should allow
each regulator to enter into a partnership arrangement with one or more of the
other regulators to for example establish a joint adjudication process.
9.24 We also welcome views on whether the statute should leave open the option of
transferring fitness to practise adjudication to the Unified Tribunals System
established by the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. There are
already analogous jurisdictions within the Tribunals Service, including the:
(1) First-tier Tribunal (Primary Health Lists), which deals with appeals by
GPs, dentists and other health professionals against Primary Care
Trusts’ decisions about local performers’ lists (which often include fitness
to practise issues); and
(2) First-tier Tribunal (Care Standards), which deals with appeals from
people included in lists of individuals regarded as unsuitable to work with
children and vulnerable adults and appeals against conduct decisions by
the General Social Care Council.
9.25 Under our proposed system, the decision to join the Tribunal Service could be a
matter which is left the regulators to initiate but the final decision would rest with
the Government who would need to undertake its own impact assessment and
legislate in order to extend the remit of the Tribunal service.
9.26 However, the Government has recently considered and discounted this option on
the basis that “any transfer of powers would be a new development in terms of
adjudication of professionals” and it would be a “complicated and lengthy process
17 Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence, Fitness to Practise Adjudication for Health
Professionals: Assessing Different Mechanisms for Delivery: CHRE Response to the
Department of Health Consultation (2010) para 7.
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