Our proposed additions and changes
- Where an investigation is refused or no regulatory action is taken, the right for a person who raised a concern about a healthcare professional to appeal to the registrar of the regulator and have the decision reviewed and, if the registrar’s decision is considered unreasonable, the right to request the Professional Standards Authority to review and them to have the power to challenge the decision.
- Abolition of the GMC’s ‘five-year rule’, which prevents investigation of most concerns if they happened more than five years ago, as well as any other time-based rule making it more difficult for potentially unfit professionals to be investigated.
- Independent specialist advice to be available to anyone who is raising a serious concern about a health professional with a regulator or considering doing so.
- Measures to prevent bullying of witnesses and people who raise concerns in fitness to practise hearings.
- Safeguards to ensure that cases dealt with without a formal hearing are fully transparent and cannot result in ‘plea bargaining’.
- Implementation of Baroness Cumberlege’s recommendation in her review of medicines and devices for the GMC to maintain a register of doctors’ commercial interests.