Health Professions: Regulation

(asked on 8th May 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 5 June 2023 to Question 187004 on Health Professions: Regulation, if she will set out the timetable to remove the five year time limit for fitness to practice concerns to be investigated by the General Medical Council.


Answered by
Andrew Stephenson Portrait
Andrew Stephenson
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 13th May 2024

The Government is currently working with the General Medical Council (GMC) to develop a new legislative framework for the GMC, in relation to the regulation of doctors. As set out in the Government’s response to Regulating Healthcare Professionals, Protecting the Public, the Government has committed to the removal of any legislative restrictions on regulators from being able to consider fitness to practise concerns that are more than five years old. Regulators such as the GMC will have the discretion to determine whether a concern should be investigated based on the specific details of a fitness to practise case, which may include reflections on the length of time that has elapsed since the concern was raised or occurred. A public consultation on the new legislative framework will be taken forward in due course, and will adhere to the requirements of section 60 of the Health Act 1999.

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