Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of the recommendation of Sir Robert Francis QC in Freedom to speak up, published on 11 February 2015, on procedures to allow a common independent tribunal to determine fitness to practice issues and sanctions across the healthcare professional field.

In response to the recommendation about setting up a common independent tribunal for fitness to practise decisions in Sir Robert Francis QC’s Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, the Government referred to its intention to review the legislation of health and care professional regulators in the United Kingdom.

The Government is planning to consult on the high level principles of reform of professional regulation. This includes consideration of powers to enable the regulatory bodies to work jointly. Such powers could be used to share tribunal services.