The board steering the new adjudicator on doctors’ fitness to practise is taking shape.
Two non-executive directors have been appointed to the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator which, from 2011, will adjudicate on the cases brought before it by the GMC.
It is hoped that the separation of investigation from adjudication through the creation of OHPA will demonstrate that fitness to practise decisions are fair and effective and separate from the profession, regulator and government.
The newly appointed non-executive directors, Andrew Colquhoun and Pamela Charlwood, will work with the chair Walter Merricks to oversee the creation of this new independent body and regulatory system.
Colquhoun is chairman of the investigation committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, while Charlwood is vice chair of the Hampshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Merricks, who becomes chair of OHPA on 1 November, has been the chief financial ombudsman.
Ian Barker, an MDU solicitor, welcomed the progress. “It’s right that the body that prosecutes does not adjudicate as well - it’s a basic principle of fairness,” he said.
He added that the OHPA is in the interests of doctors because while the public think the GMC goes easy on doctors, in reality, the opposite is true.
This split in role was recommended by Dame Janet Smith, who presided over the Shipman Inquiry, and the GMC will in future be confined to investigating complaints, gathering evidence, and ‘prosecuting’ cases.
The General Optical Council will follow the GMC in losing its adjudication role to the new office, and all healthcare professions will eventually abide by the same system.
It represents a significant step away from self-regulation, and follows an increase in lay representation within the GMC. Last year, the GMC also controversially changed the burden of proof required in making fitness to practise decisions. The civil standard of proof is now applied, so allegations no longer have to be proved beyond reasonable doubt but on the balance of probabilities.
It is hoped that OHPA’s development provides an opportunity to improve case management.
MDU’s Barker believes the length of hearings and their cost could be reduced if the OHPA used legally qualified chairs on fitness to practise panels.
He said: “As it exists, a legal assessor advises the panel. But, gone are the days when you had a panel of 12 doctors needing independent legal advice. If you had a legal chair, they could make their own legal determinations and it would cut down on the considerable amount of time spent dealing with legal aspects.”
Tags: fitness to practise, GMC, OHPA
