Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals Consultation

(3) a private hearing is necessary to protect the interests of any child or
protected party; 48
(4) it is a hearing of an application made without notice and it would be
unjust to any respondent for there to be a public hearing; or
(5) the court considers this to be necessary, in the interests of justice. 49
9.68 If any of these exceptions apply, the hearing or any part of it may take place in
private. Furthermore, the Panel would have the power to order that the identity of
any party or witness must not be disclosed if it considers non-disclosure
necessary in order to protect the interests of that party or witness.
9.69 Currently, most of the regulators’ rules specify that health and interim order cases
must be held in private unless certain exceptions apply. There are strong
arguments for private hearings in health cases since they are essentially
rehabilitative in nature and often consider information of a private and personal
nature. The main arguments for private hearings in interim order cases are that
there is no proof of wrong-doing at that stage and to have details of serious
allegations laid out in public could result in professionals having their reputations
damaged irreparably, even when the allegations are not later proved. In our view
these arguments are less convincing to those applied to health cases, but we
welcome further views.
9.70 In any event, under our proposed approach based on the Civil Procedure Rules it
would not be necessary to specify a general rule that health or interim order
cases must be in private. The Panel would be required to proceed from the
starting point that all hearings must be in public, unless one of the exceptions
listed above applies. In most health cases, for example, it is likely that hearing
would be in private on the basis that it involves confidential information,
notwithstanding that rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human
Rights would be engaged. 50 We therefore do not propose to establish a separate
general rule that that health or interim order cases must be in private.
Provisional Proposal 9-14: The statute should require that all fitness to
practise hearings must be held in public unless one or more of the exceptions
in the Civil Procedure Rules apply.
Vulnerable witnesses
9.71 In our view, the statute should establish a central definition of a vulnerable
witness. It is not acceptable that some regulators do not have any express
provision for vulnerable witnesses. Furthermore some of the definitions we have
48
A protected party is a person who lacks capacity to conduct the proceedings, see Civil
Procedure Rules, r 21(1).
49 Civil Procedure Rules, r 39.2.
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