The Fitness to practise annual report offers an overview of the work undertaken by our Fitness to Practise (FTP) Department between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018
The Fitness to practise annual report highlights key statistics and insights and demonstrates how we met our objective of protecting the public.
Key facts and figures
There were 2,302 FTP concerns in 2017-18, a two per cent increase compared to the previous year. The proportion of registrants who had concerns raised about their fitness to practise remained relatively low, at 0.6 per cent, with only 0.1 per cent subject to a sanction.
The largest number of concerns (42 per cent) were submitted by members of the public, followed by registrants’ employers (26 per cent). The third largest group (18 per cent) was registrants themselves, who are obliged to inform us about circumstances that affect their fitness to practise.
Hearings activity took place over a total of 2,337 days. Of the cases we progressed through the fitness to practise process:
− 1,234 were closed as they did not meet our Standard of Acceptance;
− 475 cases were concluded at the Investigating Committee level;
− 432 cases were concluded at final hearings; and
− 250 cases were concluded at review hearings.
Key improvements made during 2017-18 include:
- a bespoke induction and training plan for employees and partners (including panel members and legal assessors) to equip them in making clear and well-reasoned written decisions;
- review of our practice notes and policies, including our FTP publication policy;
- streamlining of the process for preparing hearing bundles, enabling faster provision of documentation to the involved parties and hence giving them more time to prepare;
- developing the pre and post-hearing quality checking process.