Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to help support information-sharing on concerns about staff between (a) hospitals and (b) hospital departments.

National Health Service hospitals must comply with the NHS employment check standards, which set out the statutory and mandatory check requirements that employers must undertake as part of any recruitment, ongoing employment or redeployment within the NHS in England, including where staff move between hospitals. The standards are intended to support employers to ensure individuals are of sound character and have the appropriate qualifications, skills and competency to properly and safely perform the tasks required of them. These standards can be found at the following link:

www.nhsemployers.org

In July 2018, the Government commissioned Tom Kark KC to write a report and make recommendations in relation to the fit and proper persons test. The Government accepted the majority of the recommendations and NHS England has developed and recently introduced the Fit and Proper Person Framework. These improvements will help to prevent unfit board members from moving between NHS organisations. To support information sharing on senior leaders, fields have been added to the Electronic Staff Record system to capture an ongoing record of annual Fit and Proper Person testing.