Ideal Queen's Speech: ‘Simplify the face of regulation’ for patients, the public and professionals

"My Government will introduce a bill to modernise the complex legal framework of regulation of health and social care professionals and allow the regulators to better protect the public."

The nine bodies responsible for regulating health and social care professionals suffer from an archaic legislative framework that gives each regulator varying degrees of unnecessary bureaucratic burden to finance.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council, alongside other regulators, has been working closely with the three Law Commissions to ensure that the Draft Bill on the Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals they have produced dramatically improves our ability to protect the public. The Department of Health has also been closely involved to ensure that the draft bill meets the government’s aims, as set out in the 2011 command paper, Enabling Excellence.

The bill will simplify the face of regulation for patients, the public and professionals and will result in common processes and terminology, making it easier to scrutinise the work of the regulators.

For us in particular there are major barriers to public protection which would be resolved under the draft bill. Currently there are excessively burdensome processes we have to follow when a nurse or midwife has been referred to us because of concerns about their fitness to practise.

A small example of the difference the bill could make is the case of a nurse who self-refers to us with an alcohol condition. Under the current legislation the case must progress through all our stages. This includes seeking a medical report from an independent medical examiner and blood testing, at both investigation and adjudication stages, costing thousands of pounds. At the final hearing the panel would be likely to set conditions on the nurse’s practice, such as abstaining from alcohol and having regular blood tests. The process would take around 18 months to conclude and cost a minimum of £3,500.

Under the reforms, instead of progressing to a final hearing the two case examiners can agree the same terms (“undertakings”) much earlier in the process. There may be no need for a formal hearing. Such a case could be resolved in a fraction of the time with the same outcome at considerably less cost.

The impact on the nurse would be reduced by a less adversarial process and public protection would be enhanced by a quicker process and by freeing up resources to concentrate on more complex cases. We currently hold 30 events a day of which 22 are substantive hearings. That is more than most large criminal court centres.

We are hoping that the government is able to find parliamentary time for this draft bill, which has been the product of hard work for the last two years and has achieved a significant degree of consensus about the pressing urgency with which it is needed. Amid the pre-election jockeying for Parliamentary time, we are hopeful that this legislation which is so important for patients will be allowed the time it needs to be enacted.