Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals Consultation

investigation has concluded that the doctor’s fitness to practise is impaired,
registration must be refused. It is argued that this causes difficulties because:
(1) in cases where a doctor’s fitness to practise is found to be impaired, but
the Panel has concluded that he or she is safe to practise subject to
conditions on their practise, full registration cannot be granted; and
(2) the way the legislation is worded means that international medical
graduates are treated differently from UK and European Economic Area
graduates, since their applications cannot proceed until any outstanding
investigations are resolved.
5.56 The Council is therefore proposing to remove the test of fitness to practise for
provisionally registered doctors applying for full registration.
Provisional view
5.57 There are significant differences in the requirements for full and temporary
registration across the regulators. These differences are often a consequence of
the broad range of different circumstances faced by each regulator. One possible
option for reform therefore would be for the statute to give the regulators broad
powers to determine whatever registration requirements they thought were
appropriate. In effect, the statute would not specify matters such as qualification
or payment of fees, but leave these to be specified by the regulators in rules.
5.58 Although we are attracted to this option, we believe that in some areas the legal
framework must establish some degree of consistency across the regulators. Not
only would this establish greater legal clarity and certainty for those seeking
registration and the public, it would also help to address some of the difficulties
associated with some of the requirements for registration.
5.59 First, we provisionally propose that the statute should specify that the applicant
must hold one or more approved qualifications in order to be registered. The
regulators would then be required to specify in rules what those qualifications are,
including those for applicants who have qualified overseas. As noted above, this
is in line with the approach taken in most of the governing legislation. This power
would also enable the regulators to set any additional education, training or
experience requirements for the purposes of conditional registration and renewal.
5.60 Second, we think that the general requirements of good health and character
which are contained in some of the legislation should be removed. In our view
these provisions suggest some general state of health or character that is
required for registration and obscures the primary issue for the regulators of
whether these matters affect a professional’s fitness to practise. Moreover, there
is evidence that these provisions can impact negatively on disabled people, often
leading to unwillingness to disclose a disability which in turn reduces the
availability of reasonable adjustments in law and individual support. 42
42 Disability Rights Commission, Maintaining Standards: Promoting Equality (2007). See also
Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence, Health Conditions: A Report to the Four UK
Health Departments (2009).
81