Revalidation will apply to all health professionals registered with the UK health professions regulators. This will include any registered, self-employed locums.
(2) what guidance is provided to (a) employers and (b) patients on the reporting of concerns over the quality of services provided by self-employed locums working as (i) doctors, (ii) nurses, (iii) pharmacists, (iv) dentists and (v) other health professionals in the NHS.
Health care organisations should investigate all concerns about the quality of care given by a health care professional working for them, whether in a locum or substantive capacity. On 26 February 2009, the Department published “Listening, responding, improving: a guide to better customer care”, aimed at health and social care staff involved in receiving feedback and resolving concerns and complaints. This is generic guidance to help local complaints managers to work with colleagues to make their organisations better at listening, responding and learning from people’s experiences of care. Additionally, each national health service health care provider must make information available to the public regarding arrangements for dealing with complaints. The NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency is responsible for providing advice to agencies on complaints procedures and for monitoring complaints about agency workers.
The Department’s advice to employers “Handling Concerns about the Performance of Healthcare Professionals: Principles of Good Practice” was published in September 2006. This document sets out the principles for effective systems for handling performance concerns and outlines good practice for managing concerns about individuals. “High professional standards in the modern NHS”; a framework for the initial handling of concerns about doctors and dentists in the NHS, was issued in 2005 and applies to the NHS in England. It sets out the procedures to be followed when the quality of services provided are called into question. Similar guidance is also issued by individual regulatory bodies, which can be accessed from their websites. Copies of the publications referred to in the reply have been placed in the Library.
Under the Health and Social Care (Community Health and Standards) Act 2003, it is the duty of each NHS body to put and keep in place arrangements for the purpose of monitoring and improving the quality of health care provided by and for that body. The Government have taken additional powers through the Health and Social Care Act 2008 which will enable the introduction of new regulations intended to strengthening local clinical governance arrangements. This includes the introduction of responsible officers, who will have statutory responsibility for ensuring that there are robust systems in place to monitor the conduct and performance of all doctors, including those working as locums. Health care organisations and designated bodies will also be subject to a new duty of co-operation, which will ensure that concerns about health care workers are shared and acted upon, to protect patients and ensure quality of care. The new regulations will be accompanied with guidance for employers and patients. A public consultation on the regulations will be undertaken later this year.