Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will consider standardising the disciplinary sanctions available to healthcare regulators at the closure of cases.

The Government is committed to modernising the regulation of all healthcare professionals in the United Kingdom. As a first step, on 24 March 2026, we published our Reforming the General Medical Council legislative framework consultation, which sets out proposals to modernise the General Medical Council’s regulatory framework. The consultation runs until 23 June 2026. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/reforming-the-general-medical-council-legislative-framework/reforming-the-general-medical-council-legislative-framework-consultation-document

The draft General Medical Council Order 2026 includes a modernised fitness to practise process, including standardising the final registration measures that should be available to case examiners and fitness to practise panels at the end of fitness to practise proceedings.

Subject to the outcome of the consultation and the parliamentary process, the Government plans to roll out this fitness to practise process to the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Health and Care Professions Council during this UK parliamentary term, and to all regulators in due course.