NMC strike off Lucy Letby, but did they need a hearing?
On 12 December 2023, the Nursing & Midwifery Council announced that following a Fitness to Practise committee hearing, an independent panel has concluded that Lucy Letby will be struck off the register and when the order takes effect in January 2024, she will therefore cease to be a registered nurse.
It seems obvious to most that when a healthcare professional is convicted of such awful crimes that they are clearly “fundamentally incompatible” with working in their chosen profession, whether that be nursing as in this case, or any other healthcare position which is subject to regulation.
So why did the NMC need to conduct a formal hearing?
Currently most healthcare regulators rules and processes are governed by strict legislation. This legislation sets out a formalised process that the regulator must follow before they can impose a sanction, including conducting hearings so an independent panel or tribunal can meet to make a final decision. Whilst this is the current position, the government has committed to reforming the legislative framework for regulated health and care professionals across the UK.
One such reform being advance is to ensure that the fitness to practise processes are less adversarial with the intention of speeding up decision making in circumstances like the case involving Lucy Letby. In the future regulators will likely have the power to remove healthcare professionals from their respective registers for the most serious criminal convictions, with the intention to improve public confidence in regulation.
Over the coming months and years, Regulatory Defence will be staying abreast of the changes that widespread regulatory reform will have on the regulatory healthcare bodies in order to ensure that we are best placed to advice our clients on the effects of these changes and how this could impact on fitness to practise investigations.