Early fitness to practise decisions

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Early fitness to practise decisions

Decisions taken without referral to a fitness to practise committee hearing

In 2009 we set up a new process to audit the regulators’ handling of complaints that are not referred for a formal hearing in front of a fitness to practise committee. The Government decided that we should carry out such audits and explained why in its White Paper, Trust, Assurance and Safety.

We carry out an annual programme of audits of the regulators’ decisions in relation to complaints that are not referred for a formal hearing in front of a fitness to practise committee. We audit a random sample of these complaints and assess whether the interests of patients and the public were properly considered by the regulator before the regulator made its decision not to refer the complaint for a formal hearing.

The frequency of audits of each regulator varies according to our assessment of the relevant risks, with each regulator being audited at least once every three years (this is a recent change to our process – for the first two years of our audit programme we audited all the regulators each year).

We cannot as part of our audit require a regulator to re-consider a specific case.

We publish reports explaining the findings of our audits, and this work is valuable in promoting good practice across all the regulators.

Further information is available in the following publications & pages:

The audit process

Our most recent audit reports

Previous audit reports