Regulating Healthcare Professionals - Crucible's Response to Government Consultation.

Crucible has submitted a response to the DHSC Consultation "Regulating healthcare professionals, protecting the public"

Our healthcare regulatory system has for some years been in need of reform. The wide ranging DHSC Consultation proposals seek to streamline fitness to practise, with the ultimate aim of reducing the need for contested hearings.

In the main, we consider the reforms to be positive and well-reasoned. However, we have grave reservations about some aspects of the proposed reforms and found that some of the proposals lacked sufficient detail.

We support the proposals which:

• Encourage greater cooperation between regulators
• Streamline the fitness to practise process and bring consistency across the regulators
• Increase transparency in the regulatory process
• Allow for earlier disposal of regulatory concerns
• Introduce a Registrar's Review of final decisions, in order to prevent injustice to Registrants

We object to the proposals designed to:

• Rebrand impairment as "grounds for action"
• Remove Health as an independent head of impairment
• Remove the sanctions of "no further action" or "caution order"
• Allow publication of all decisions, including those where there has been a finding of no misconduct, without a Registrant's consent

Our full response to the consultation can be read here. We await further details of the proposals and will keep you updated.