Safeguarding

Safeguarding Patients 25
Recruitment of new staff
Recruitment processes
Neale Inquiry recommendation 1: The Secretary of State for Health should consider setting up
a new body, or expanding the power of an existing body such as the Council for Healthcare
Regulatory Excellence (CHRE), to take an overarching view of all aspects of the rules
governing the appointment and employment of doctors. This body should have necessary
powers of investigation in the wider interests of patient safety, ensuring a robust and consistent
approach to individual concerns that may arise in the future.
3.6 Guidance to the NHS on good employment practice falls within the remit of NHS Employers, a
part of the NHS Confederation, and the Government considers that it would confuse NHS
organisations, and detract from the safety of patients, to set up a further body for this purpose.
Neale Inquiry recommendation 7: Clear roles should be established for all those on an interview
panel and full note of proceedings should be taken and retained.
Recommendation 8: All previous contacts between applicant and interviewers should be
disclosed and recorded.
Recommendation 9: Any undisclosed championing of applicants should be disclosed and
recorded.
Recommendation 10: The application form should contain a declaration that all information
is correct to the best of the applicant’s knowledge and belief and any matter, professional
or personal unresolved or pending, that might undermine the applicant’s standing, or cause
embarrassment to the NHS, should be declared by a confidential side letter to the chairman.
The penalty for failure to disclose such information should be summary dismissal.
3.7 The Government agrees that all these recommendations represent good practice; most are
already covered in standing guidance to the NHS. The Government will invite NHS Employers
to ensure that they are fully covered in future updates of this guidance.
Checks by employers
Neale Inquiry recommendation 3: The contents of the model declaration forms referred to in
HSC2002/08 should be made mandatory in the NHS.
Recommendation 4: For all doctor appointments made directly from overseas, regardless of
where they qualified, employing authorities should check with the issuing body the recommended
applicant’s primary and postgraduate qualifications and confirm fitness to practise.
3.8 HSC2002/08 has been superseded by more recent guidance updated in January 2007 (see
para 3.4). As with other aspects of recruitment, we will consider how the new regulatory framework
can best be used to promote adoption of best practice in relation to these model declaration
forms.
3.9 Issues relating to the registration in the United Kingdom of doctors qualified in other countries
are covered in Trust, assurance and safety at paras 5.14-20. The Government considers that it is
for the health professions regulators to check the primary qualification of health professionals