Can regulatory bodies' sanctions in fitness to practise cases be harmonised?

Can regulatory bodies' sanctions in fitness to practise cases be harmonised?

As part of their role in protecting the public, regulators can enforce sanctions if a health professional’s fitness to practise is found to be impaired. These include removing a professional from the register (preventing them from practising in the future), imposing restrictions on their practice, or a fine.

Each regulator was set up with its own set of sanctions and there are a number of differences. In this project we explored the possibility of making sanctions more consistent across the regulators. We found that in spite of the differences between the regulators’ fitness to practise procedures, greater harmonisation of sanctions should be possible. We also found that using the same words to describe the sanctions would be helpful to the public.

Documents about this project include:

• the consulation paper (November 2007)
   
• analysis of the consulation responses (September 2008)
   
• CHRE's position (September 2008)
   
• CHRE view on common terms (November 2009)