Clause 28 - Medical practitioners
NHS Reform and Health Care Professions Bill
10:30 am
Mr John Hutton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Barrow and Furness, Labour)
The amendments relate to provisions in four Acts—the Medical Act 1983, the Opticians Act 1989, the Osteopaths Act 1993 and the Chiropractors Act 1994—and the way in which, in certain limited situations, an appeal against a regulator's decision to remove a person's registration should be handled in relation to the Scottish courts.
For doctors, dentists and opticians, such decisions are those to remove registration on the ground that it has been obtained through fraud or error. I should make it clear that we are not dealing with fitness to practise cases. For osteopaths and chiropractors, the range of registration is broader, and includes the generality of such decisions—for example, where a person applying for registration was not of good character. The fraud and error provisions relate to, for example, a person who applies for registration as a physiotherapist, and presents certificates purporting to show recognised physiotherapy qualifications that are in fact forgeries.
Hon. Members will not be surprised to learn that, in a typical year, perhaps only two or three such appeals are made in respect of all professions throughout the United Kingdom. The Bill will divert those very few cases away from the Privy Council, along with fitness to practise appeals, which I shall discuss in due course. Subsequent clauses will make fitness to practise issues the province of the High Court, the Court of Session in Scotland, or the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland. In England, the less-serious matters that we are dealing with today will be handled by the county court; in Scotland, we envisage that the sheriff court will handle them.
In Scotland, a professional whose name is to be removed from the register should be able to bring an appeal in a local sheriff court, just as such an appeal can be brought before a county court in England. However and as hon. Members may know, in Scotland jurisdiction relating to the sheriff court is based on the address of the defender—in this case, the regulatory body. Of course, the regulatory bodies are based south of the border and may not have offices in Scotland; they certainly do not have an office in each sheriffdom. The person in question would therefore find it difficult to raise an action in their local sheriff court—or, indeed, in any sheriff court in Scotland—because the Scottish courts have no jurisdiction.
Without the amendment, the perverse situation might arise whereby an appeal in Scotland could be heard only in London, but someone whose registered address was in Barrow-in-Furness—an excellent part of the country—could benefit from a county court hearing in Barrow. That would be unfair, and in effect would prevent Scottish cases from being heard in sheriff courts in Scotland. The amendments will ensure that such appeals can be heard in local sheriff courts in Scotland.