GDC criticised in new audit
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- Published: Friday, 02 January 2015 10:37
- Written by News Editor
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The Professional Standards Authority (PSA), which oversees the work of healthcare regulators, including the GDC, has issued a stinging report as a result of its audit of the initial stages of the fitness to practise process. It said that inadequacies identified in previous years have not been rectified.
Extract from the conculsions of the PSA report:
‘Our overall conclusions from the 2014 audit are that the inadequacies with the system of quality assurance and management oversight at the GDC that we identified in our 2013 audit largely remain, and that our findings reveal a decline in some aspects of the GDC’s performance. Whilst we did not identify any decisions to close cases which we considered risked patient safety, we considered that some decisions risked undermining confidence in the professions. We remain concerned that aspects of case handling and decision making by the GDC continue to risk undermining confidence in the regulator.
‘Our most significant concerns relate to:
- Failures by decision makers to demonstrate in the records of their decisions that they have fully understood and considered the evidence and appropriately applied the relevant tests to the evidence, with the result that there appears to be inconsistency in decision making
- Failures to gather sufficient, appropriate and relevant information at the investigation stage
- Delays in progressing complaints at all points and the number of failures by the GDC to meet its own targets
- The risks posed by inadequate record keeping, in particular recording of reasons.
‘We are disappointed that we saw little evidence of improvement in the GDC’s case handling in this year’s audit. This is not entirely unexpected, as the cases we audited in the 2014 audit were closed before the GDC had undertaken several remedial actions following the publication of the 2013 audit report (in December 2013). For example, new casework guidance and guidance for decision makers was not introduced until May 2014.’
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