Schedule 7
Health and Social Care Bill
11:00 am
Ben Bradshaw (Minister of State (Health Services; Minister for the South West), Department of Health; Exeter, Labour)
Schedule 7 inserts a new section into the Medical Act 1983, allowing the regulator to publish guidance on the factors affecting the registrant’s performance and the appropriate sanctions. The provision of such guidance follows Lady Justice Smith’s recommendations as part of the Shipman inquiry:
“Urgent steps should be taken to develop standards, criteria and thresholds so that decision-makers will be able to reach reasonably consistent decisions at both the investigation and the adjudication stages of the FTP procedures and on restoration applications.”
Under schedule 7, the OHPA will be required to take account of such guidance in exercising its functions; the guidance will not be binding and it will make its final decision based on the facts of each individual case. The amendment would remove the requirement on the OHPA to take account of the guidance and replace it with an optional duty to do so.
The GMC has and will retain responsibility for setting and maintaining the standards required of doctors. The guidance on the standards is published as good medical practice and is widely regarded as setting the international standard for medical practice. The GMC currently publishes guidance for use by its fitness to practise panels when considering what sanctions to impose following a finding that the fitness to practise of a doctor may be impaired. Currently, the medical and lay panellists appointed to sit on the panels exercise their own judgments in making decisions, but they must take into consideration the standards of good practice that the GMC has established, which have been drawn up—and will continue to be drawn up—after wide consultation, and which reflect what society expects of doctors.
To allow the OHPA discretion as to whether it will take account of that guidance would, we believe, be likely to lead to confusion and possibly even challenge about the conduct and outcome of cases. We think that it is right and proper that the OHPA should take account of good practice guidance, which is after all the basis on which the cases will be put before its panels. That is why we have placed the obligation on the OHPA in the Bill. As I have said, the panels will not be obliged to follow rigidly the guidance published, but they must take account of it. Given those reassurances, I hope that the hon. Lady will feel able to withdraw her amendment.