Health Professionals

Legal Help for Healthcare Professionals

Our services:

 We can assist you with your registration and problems associated whether in respect of an initial application or if your Registration is at stake due to a Fitness to Practise investigation or proceeding. We can help you through disciplinary processes at work  and with all stages involved in the Fitness to Practise arena from investigation through to adjudication. We can help you whether you undertake private or public work or both.

Health Professions Council

The HPC is a new independent regulator covering the whole of the UK  responsible for setting and maintaining standards of professional training and conduct for a total of 15 health professions comprising:

arts therapists, biomedical scientists, chiropodists / podiatrists, clinical scientists, dietitians, hearing aid dispensers, occupational therapists, operating department practitioners, orthoptists, paramedics, physiotherapists, practitioner psychologists, prosthetists / orthotists, radiographers, and speech and language therapists.

All of these professions have at least one professional title that is protected by law, including those shown above. This means, for example, that anyone using the titles 'physiotherapist' or 'dietitian' must be registered with the HPC.

There are currently 219,000 registrants and it is set to increase as proposals are in place to extend regulation to social workers, taking over from the general Social Care Council.

It is a criminal offence for someone to claim that they are registered when they are not, or to use a protected title that they are not entitled to use.

Fitness to Practise

Complaints can emanate as in all professional disciplinary matters from a  wide range of sources, patients and service users being the most common or relatives of the same. It can also be from a colleague or manager within the organisation. They can be within the private or public sector.

Complaints are investigated by caseworkers appointed at the HPC and notification to the Registrant that a matter is subject to investigation.

It can come as a shock but more often the matter has already been the subject of internal disciplinary measures.

Various Committees are established reporting to the Council responsible for different functions in respect of Fitness to Practise

Investigating Committee

This is a panel formed from a number of HPC partners who in turn include a variety of different roles that can be filled by people with different experience and qualifications, from members of the public to qualified lawyers and solicitors and health professionals on the HPC register.

They act as a screening committee to consider whether or not there is a case to answer when a complaint has been received and to decide whether it raises issues of fitness to practise which should be referred to the Fitness to Practise Committee.

Fitness to Practise Committee

The purpose of the Fitness to Practise Committee is to determine whether or not a registrant fitness to practise has been impaired by reason of the Registrant’s misconduct or health impairment.

Hearings are held both to determine issues of fact arising from the allegations where these are not admitted by the Registrant.

The Committee will also determine the outcome and whether or not sanctions are to be imposed if a finding of impairment is made, in line with the Indicative Sanctions guidance, depending on the seriousness of the matter and after full consideration of any mitigation and supporting evidence called on behalf of the registrant.

The type of sanctions available are:

Mediation

Caution

Conditions of practice

Suspension

Striking off

It is critical that if you wish to avoid your registration being cancelled you cooperate with the investigation and proceedings at the earliest opportunity. Let us help you through this process.

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