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Rayner my parade! The importance of specialist advice.
Jemma Brimblecombe
20 October 2015
Case update: High Court confirms ‘moral opprobrium’ is part of test for determining unacceptable professional conduct as Osteopath’s appeal is dismissed and admonishment sanction stands
Shaw v General Osteopathic Council [2015] EWHC 2721 (Admin)
Mr. Shaw (“S”), appealed to the High Court, against the decision of the Professional Conduct Committee of the General Osteopathic Council ("the panel") on 29 January 2015. The panel admonished S for unacceptable professional conduct, pursuant to section 20(2) under the Osteopaths Act 1993 ("the Act"), and found "conduct which falls short of the standard required of a registered osteopath”. The sanction of Admonishment is the least serious penalty that can be imposed upon registered osteopaths. Other sanctions available were conditions of practice, suspension and the most serious, removal from the register.
S‘s appeal was against the panel’s decision in relation to the finding of unacceptable professional conduct and that this decision was wrong, and therefore no sanction should have followed.
13 October 2015
Case update: Nurse succeeds on appeal after Court of Appeal (Scotland) find NMC panel failed to address registrant’s inadequate representation and wrongly accepted methodology put forward by NMC
D v Nursing and Midwifery Council Court of Session (Inner House, Extra Division), 4 November 2014.
D was a registered nurse and the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) case was that between 23 May and 6 October 2011, D had taken small to large amounts of the anti-nausea drug, ‘cyziline’ from hospital supplies without authorisation. The fitness to practise panel at the NMC found the allegations proved, and imposed a striking off order from the NMC’s register for serious misconduct involving dishonesty. D appealed against this decision.
15 September 2015
Case Update: PSA finds sanction of 2 year caution unduly lenient after panel did not consider all the material circumstances of social worker’s dishonesty
Professional Standards Authority v Health and Care Professions Council and Gemma Williamson [2015] EWHC 2420 (Admin)
Judgement date: 10 July 2015
Fitness to practise allegations:
A Panel (the Panel) of the Conduct and Competence Committee of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) heard the disciplinary hearing against Ms Williamson (W) on 1 and 2 December 2014.
10 August 2015
Case Update: Court of Appeal find GMC wrongly applied ‘5 year rule’ and confirms regulators have powers to revoke any decision where there was a mistake regarding underlying facts
29 July 2015
R (on the application of Dr Anup Chaudhuri v the General Medical Council [2015] EWCA 6621 (Admin)
Background
The Claimant, Dr Chaudhuri, a general practitioner (‘Dr C’), applied for Judicial Review of the GMC’s decision pursuant to Rule 4(5) of the General Medical Council (Fitness to Practise) Rules 2004 (‘the 5 year rule’), which is set out below:
“No allegation shall proceed further, if at the time it is first made or first comes to the attention of the General Council, more than five-years have elapsed since the most recent events giving rise to the allegation, unless the Registrar considers that it is in the public interest, in the exceptional circumstances of the case, for it to proceed.”
30 July 2015
Case Update: High Court hold that panel of the NMC were unduly lenient in imposing 4 month suspension for dishonest nurse
Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care v Nursing and Midwifery Council, Mr D Wilson, [2015] EWHC 1887 (Admin)
Judgement Date: 5 June 2015
This was an appeal brought by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) pursuant to section 29 of the National Health Service Reform and Health Professions Act from a decision made by a Panel of the Conduct and Competence Committee (the Panel) of the NMC on 9 January 2015 to suspend the registrant of Mr Wilson for 4 months. The appeal was supported by the NMC. Both the Authority and the NMC submit that the decision of the Panel on sanction in this particular case was wrong, and they invited the learned Judge to quash the suspension and to substitute the suspension for an order striking Mr Wilson off the register.
