Posts Tagged ‘ISA’

Review launched into vetting and barring scheme

The Guardian - 16th June 2010 10:50 am

The vetting of up to nine million people who frequently work with children and vulnerable adults, which was due to start next month, was halted by the home secretary, Theresa May, pending a review intended to scale back the scheme to “common sense” proportions.

May said she had taken the decision because it was now recognised that the vetting and barring scheme was disproportionate, burdensome and infringed on civil liberties.

The scheme was introduced in the wake of the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by school caretaker Ian Huntley in Soham in 2002.

However, the effect of the announcement is limited. Voluntary registrations, at £64 a time for new employees and those changing jobs, were due to start next month but are not due to become mandatory until November.

Existing staff are not due to be phased into the scheme until 2011.

Under the original scheme, the database of people registered to work with children would have covered 11 million adults, making it the largest child protection database in the world.

Read more at The Guardian.

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Vetting and barring scheme delays referral times

By Mike Broad - 11th January 2010 1:20 pm

Children are being forced to wait months to see consultants because of delays caused by the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS).

New regulations mean that consultants need to undergo a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check every time they work at a new hospital and are not allowed to start work until the process is completed and hard copy received by post by the employing trust.

The government’s controversial new scheme has been set up in response to the Soham murders to monitor people working with children and vulnerable adults.

Currently, backlogs in the system mean this can take several months which is creating problems for trusts in organising cover, particularly when highly specialist doctors become suddenly unavailable.

Mr David Jones, paediatric orthopaedic surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital, was asked to cover a colleague’s sickness leave in Leeds over December and January.

Jones explained: “Despite filling out all the documentation at the beginning of November, the process dragged on in spite of many phone calls to CRB from Leeds General Infirmary. All the clinics and lists planned for December had to be cancelled, thereby causing large numbers of very upset families.

“In December, I wrote to the secretaries of state for Children, Skills & Family; the Home Office and Department of Health along with NHS senior management but have had no response.”

His clear clearance finally came through on 7 January. “I think more than a month has been wasted needlessly and many children and their families seriously let down,” he said.

Trusts are not obliged to use the checking scheme until July, but some re already enforcing its use. 

The Royal College of Surgeons is calling for ‘passport’ system for doctors, whereby one CRB check for an individual is recognised across NHS trusts.

Richard Collins, vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said: “It is absolutely right that there should be robust checks for anyone who works with children, but there needs to be some common sense to ensure patients don’t suffer.

“The NHS needs flexibility to enable surgeons in specialist fields to undertake operating lists in other trusts, often on an ad hoc basis. To require them to repeat the same time-consuming bureaucratic process each time is a completely unnecessary delay that must be revised.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “We recognise that there have been occasions when the requirement to undertake a check through the CRB has created local administrative difficulties. However, the requirement to undertake a CRB check provides an important safeguarding measure which should be observed in full by the NHS.

“Looking to the future, one of the benefits of the new Vetting and Barring Scheme includes better sharing of information and individuals will be provided with a portable registration status which can be taken from role to role providing for the passporting system that the Royal College of Surgeons is asking for.”

The Independent Safeguarding Authority, which oversees the VBS, recently hit the headlines when Hospital Dr revealed that it has the power to bar doctors from working with patients if there has been a complaint against them.

Doctors must register with the VBS from July. There will be a one-off fee of £64 for the criminal records and other background checks.  

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Watch out all ‘data controllers’ - they’re after us

By Tom Goodfellow - 30th December 2009 1:56 pm

Now that the “Bah, humbug!” season is over, there is no more pleasurable way to embrace the New Year than with a good rant.

Without claiming sainthood, by and large, I have been a good and upright human being over the last six decades. I have not committed adultery or coveted my neighbour’s ass, and I do try to honour the Sabbath Day (easier now that I have dropped off the on-call rota). I have managed to avoid difficult dealings with the GMC and have never yet troubled my defence body. I now have a licence to practice and my CRB status is unblemished.

So, how is it that last week I was confronted with an official letter stating that I was liable to prosecution and, if convicted, I could be fined up to £5,000 in the Magistrates’ Court or receive an unlimited fine in the Crown Court!

The reason is because I had failed to respond to an earlier letter informing me that, as a doctor who sees private patients, I was required to register under the Data Protection Act with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). I was deemed by the Commissioner to be, de facto, a ‘Data Controller’ under the terms of the Act and that failure to register was a criminal offence. Ignorance was not an excuse!

I rarely go the Golden Nugget these days. Consequently the reason I did not receive the earlier letter is that it was addressed to the local BMI Hospital, which I had not visited for weeks. I asked the ICO why they had not written to me at my GMC-registered address and was told, rather lamely, that they had found my name on a website listing doctors who did private practice and they were picking us off one by one (my interpretation).

The annual registration fee is not huge, currently £35, but the whole episode still leaves me hopping mad. The only electronic patient data I ‘control’ is the reporting module on a PACS system, and I naively assumed that this would be covered by the registration of the hospital, NHS or otherwise.

Apparently not! So despite the fact that I remain completely unclear as to the purpose or benefits of registration I have bitten the bullet, retracted my testicles and paid up (also the wife was not too keen on marriage with a convicted criminal).

What will be the next assault? Since I work with children, it will be registration with the Independent Safeguarding Authority to prove that I am not and never have been a paedophile. I wonder how much that will cost me?

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New safeguarding quango can ban doctors

By Francesca Robinson - 21st December 2009 6:41 pm

The government’s new safeguarding authority - which will have the power to remove doctors from their jobs - is creating an unnecessary and “burdensome” layer of regulation, warns the BMA.

NHS jobs are now covered by the new Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) and all children and adults receiving any form of healthcare are categorised as “vulnerable”.

Launched in October, the scheme replaces existing arrangements for spotting potential abusers with much stricter controls for protecting vulnerable people.

The Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) which runs the scheme will be able to automatically bar doctors accused of the most serious offences without any right of appeal.

If the concerns are less serious the individual will have the right to make representations as to why the bar should be removed. They will also be able to appeal to an Upper Tribunal but only on the grounds that the ISA has made an error on a point of law or fact in making its decision.

The VBS is the government’s response to the Bichard Inquiry set up after the murders in Soham of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman by Ian Huntley. It operates in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Employers face fines of up to £5,000 if they fail to refer to refer an employee whom they have concerns about.

Doctors must start registering with the VBS from July next year. There will be a one-off fee of £64 for the criminal records and other background checks. Once registered individuals will be continuously monitored. As many as nine million people could be required to undergo the checks.

The scheme has already received widespread criticism for being overly prescriptive because it will extend to parents who transport their friend’s children on behalf of a sports or social club.

Paul Flynn, deputy chairman of the BMA’s consultants committee, said: “One of our concerns is that this scheme will create a whole new dimension of scrutiny of patient safety incidents which are not necessary and it will add considerably to the burden of regulation.

“Another concern is that the ISA will have the power to take away a doctor’s ability to earn a living with no right of appeal. While the GMC and other bodies can question a doctor’s fitness to practise and remove them from their job there is always a right to appeal their decisions.

“This is a very blunt instrument for dealing with a serious problem.”

An ISA spokesman said: “The scheme offers a common sense, proportionate approach to safeguarding and it is what we believe the public would rightly expect.”

Read more on how the new VBS will work. 

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It’s time to start trusting doctors again

By Mike Broad - 17th December 2009 10:41 am

When the murderous school caretaker Ian Huntley lured pupils Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman into his house in Soham in 2002, it was to start a far reaching chain of events.

Just as Shipman led to revalidation, Huntley has generated a new layer of regulation for anyone working with children and vulnerable adults. The ensuing Bichard Inquiry heavily criticised the police for failing to check Huntley’s chequered past enabling him to get a job in a school. 

This year the government set up the Vetting and Barring Scheme in response. Its aims are honourable. As the name suggests, the scheme will attempt to bar unsuitable people from working with children or vulnerable adults, by making it a criminal offence for them to do so, and it will vet those that apply.

The scheme is run by the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) which has significant - and seemingly unaccountable - powers. The growing hysteria surrounding high profile child abuse cases has helped drive these developments.

It currently regards all patients as vulnerable and is urging employers to report any professional whose actions raise concern. This could include doctors innocently involved in medical error cases. Employers face a £5,000 fine for failing to notify ISA of any concerns with staff.

ISA will be able to automatically bar doctors accused of the most serious offences without any right of appeal. Doctors are going to have to register with VBS from July next year and pay for the privilege.

So, while we’re still digesting revalidation - questioning its fitness to practise, let alone our own - we have a new layer of regulation and red tape.

I find the way it’s been rushed in particularly worrying. There’s been minimal negotiation with the professions it affects. And I’ll take a guess that you’ve never heard of it, have no idea how it will make decisions nor understand the sanctions it could take against you and your work.

It also flies in the face of one of the few positive developments being offered by revalidation - namely that the ability to resolve issues locally is being strengthened. Instead we’ll have another body that makes profound decisions, that can affect professional’s lives enormously, from on high.

Of course children and vulnerable adults need to be protected, but that can already be achieved within the current systems. I’m sure my heart won’t be the only one sinking at the level of professional mistrust we are engendering.

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