§ Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
1.37 pm§ Mr. John Austin-Walker (Woolwich)Clause 1 makes an addition to section 46(2) of the National Health Service Act 1977, so that if a tribunal decides that a practitioner should be disqualified from appearing on a family health services authority list or lists of people providing FHS services, it may also make a declaration that the practitioner is unfit to be engaged in any capacity in connection with the provision of those services. The current provisions allow a tribunal to disqualify a person from appearing on a medical, dental, ophthalmic or pharmaceutical list, but do not prevent him from practising as a locum, assistant or deputy for some other person or body providing such services.
In essence, current legislation provides only for principals. Under this clause, the tribunal would not be obliged to make such a declaration when disqualifying a practitioner, for two reasons. Obviously, if a tribunal disqualified someone from one list but not from all lists, it would be nonsensical if he were then suspended from practising as a locum elsewhere when he may be able to practise as a principal.
Similarly, the tribunal might conclude that the offence is such that the practitioner should be prevented from being a principal, in one family health services authority or a group of FHSAs, but might not want to prevent him from working as a locum, assistant or deputy. Indeed, if the tribunal felt that the practitioner was capable of redemption, it could choose not to prevent such work and so provide an opportunity for the practitioner's rehabilitation within the NHS. It is a discretion that the tribunal could exercise.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.