Dame Janet Smith recommended in the Shipman Report that the adjudication stage of the Fitness to Practise procedures of the General Medical Council should be undertaken by a body independent of the Council. The new body should appoint and train lay and medically qualified panellists and take on the task of appointing case managers, legal assessors (if they were still required) and any necessary specialist advisers as well as providing administrative support for the hearings.
That led, under the last government, to the creation of the Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA) although it is not yet fully operational. Whilst it was expected to take over the role of adjudicating on fitness to practise cases from the GMC from April 2011, the coalition government has expressed a desire to get rid of it but has indicated it will consult on its future.
Anne Milton, The Ministerial Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Health announced the government’s intention in a written statement. Having reviewed the case for OHPA the government is not persuaded that the creation of another body is necessarily the most appropriate and proportionate way forward in terms of adjudication. The government believes that steps can be taken to strengthen and modernise existing systems within the GMC to deliver substantially the same benefits as OHPA. The learning from these steps could then be reviewed and in due course applied to other health regulators.
In a recent interview Dame Janet Smith told BBC One’s Inside Out North West that not enough changes had been made since her inquiry. But those in the health sector will applaud the decision not to waste more public money, time and upheaval on the creation of what will be, in effect, just another QUANGO. The GMC has learned many lessons in the years that have passed since Shipman. It is now the premier healthcare regulator, a fact recognised by the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence, which commented in its recent Review of Health Professional Regulatory Bodies: The public can be reassured that the GMC has achieved … high standards despite the particular challenges arising from the nature and work of the profession which it regulates.
