Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of whether the absence of mandatory strike‑off in the new MPTS guidance for proven sexual misconduct by doctors adequately protects patients.

The new guidance for Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service tribunals includes more detail about assessing the seriousness of an allegation and the features that may increase the seriousness. The guidance now also includes sanction bandings. These indicate the range of outcomes that can be expected in different case types, once a tribunal has decided whether a doctor poses a low, medium, or high level of risk to the public.

In cases relating to sexual misconduct, because the level of current and ongoing risk to public protection will generally be considered medium or high, tribunals should consider suspension or erasure. The guidance sets out that in cases where misconduct is found to be sexually motivated, the inherent seriousness is likely to be high, and that makes any outcome short of erasure from the register inappropriate.

The Department monitors how regulators perform their duties and will continue to engage with the General Medical Council, including assessing how the new guidance impacts the outcomes of tribunal findings in cases of sexual misconduct.