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Medical Profession (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2008

rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Medical Profession (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2008. The noble Baroness said: This draft order is the third in a series of affirmative resolution orders and is part of the process of implementing the recommendations made in the White Paper, Trust, Assurance and Safety. It makes what are, in effect, three sets of changes to the framework legislation for the regulation of doctors. The first set of changes relates to medical education. The order will transfer the statutory functions for the oversight of medical education from the Education Committee of the GMC to the council. This will allow the GMC to bring together all four of its interlocking statutory functions under the auspices of the council. In doing so, the GMC will be able to demonstrate that its responsibilities for medical education are central to, and not isolated from, its other regulatory functions. The order will also remove the residual role of the Privy Council in relation to the first year of postgraduate medical education. The second set of changes relates to the introduction of licences to practise. Amendments were made to the Medical Act in 2002 to create a new system whereby all practising doctors would need not only to be registered with the GMC but also to hold a licence to practise. In due course, doctors will be allowed to keep their licences to practise only if they go through a process known as revalidation, which will be a periodic re-evaluation of a doctor’s fitness to practise. The introduction of licences to practise is therefore an important preparatory step towards revalidation of all doctors. Plans for the development and introduction of revalidation have been in place for some time now, but none of this has yet been commenced, and thinking about how revalidation should take place has now evolved. The order amends some of the provisions already in place to bring them in line with the White Paper. The White Paper indicated that revalidation is now expected to have two components: relicensing, which will apply to all doctors; and recertification, which will apply to specialist doctors. No provision for recertification was included in the 2002 legislation, and so this order makes the necessary changes that will include it. Other changes to the licensing system address important issues such as the handling of adverse information about a doctor which is discovered in the course of revalidation and additional powers to ensure that, in all cases where fitness to practise concerns are identified, these can be referred through the GMC’s existing fitness to practise procedures. The third set of changes relates to specialist registration and will, in due course, have a knock-on effect for recertification. The order enables the GMC to allow senior consultants who did not apply for inclusion in the specialist register between January 1997, when it was established, and September 2005, when the current arrangements for access to the register were introduced, to make a late application for entry. This reinstates the powers that the GMC had prior to September 2005. The current situation, where some long-standing consultants are not on the specialist register, means that there is the potential for a small number of consultants to avoid recertification. Providing a quick and easy route on to the register is a first step in correcting this anomaly. These reforms will help to raise standards of medical practice and improve the patient experience. The measures will, in the longer term, help to ensure that doctors meet the very high standards that we and they expect. All the measures are supported by the GMC and I commend them to the Committee. I beg to move. Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Medical Profession (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2008. 28th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.—(Baroness Thornton.)