Vora Snehlata Jayantilal 2017737 19-02-2013.pdf - General ...

31necessary for the protection of members of the public (i.e. that the patients might be atdirect risk) to impose interim measures and he refers by analogy to the cases that of courseguide the exercise of discretion in relation to interim orders. Of course all those authoritiesare of huge assistance in determining how to exercise discretionary power in aproportionate way.However, it is right to say in our view that, at the point at which the Committee has madeits findings of fact, and have given its judgment in relation to the issue of impairment offitness to practise, the landscape, so to speak, is subtly different to that involved whenassessing proportionality on an interim basis at the point where no allegations have beenproven, and indeed, when the allegations might never been proven.Standing back for one moment from the legal arguments, the position in which we aretoday is that we have found that Miss Vora's fitness to practise is impaired. We have foundthat she has a complete lack of insight, and we have found that there is a significant risk ofrecurrence of the behaviour that we found proven; not necessarily the identical behaviour,but in our view there is a significant risk of recurrence of behaviour that breaches thestandards of the profession. In those circumstances, the Committee do consider that it is“otherwise in the public interest” that interim measures are today imposed.Mr McCartney makes the point that in this case there was no evidence of actual harm to thepatient, and that is true within a certain perspective. But when one is talking about risk,and indeed we have made a finding that fitness to practise is impaired and there is asignificant risk of recurrence, in our judgment it is appropriate, , to make a direction forinterim measures in order to protect public confidence in the profession. In our view, inthe light of our findings, public confidence in the profession would be undermined ifinterim measures were not today imposed.