Features: Administering justice and enjoying a challenge
Walter Merricks CBE took up his post as Chair of the new Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA).
27 November 2009
The setting-up of the new independent body to adjudicate on fitness to practise cases for doctors came a step closer in November as Walter Merricks CBE took up his post as Chair of the new Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA).
Over the next 18 months, Walter Merricks will be tasked with overseeing the establishment of this new body, which, from 2011, will adjudicate on fitness to practise cases brought before it by the GMC and subsequently the General Optical Council (GOC).
But before OHPA formally begins its new role in 2011, its new Chair will oversee a wide public consultation about its procedural rules to ensure that all stakeholders are able to participate in the development of how it will operate. GMCtoday asked Mr Merricks what this important change will mean for doctors.
What attracted you to the post of Chair of OHPA?
The work of OHPA is concerned with the administration of justice – a field in which I have spent most of my career; and the task is to lead a new organisation which is always an exciting challenge.
How might your experience as Chief Ombudsman of the Financial Ombudsman Service contribute to the work of OHPA?
It fell to me to establish the Financial Ombudsman Service – to take forward and consolidate the work of a number of predecessor bodies into one ombudsman service – so there is plenty of experience for me to draw on from my time at the FOS. It was also an opportunity to identify best practice from among the predecessor organisations and to introduce changes in process and procedural rules to enable us to provide a better service to those using our service.
What do you think will be the benefits of OHPA to doctors and to the wider public?
First, of course, there is the independence we will have as an adjudication body. However hard the GMC may try, it is difficult to counter the criticism that if the same body is responsible for investigating complaints, deciding to launch proceedings, and determining their outcome, there is an inherent conflict of interest. That criticism may be somewhat unfair given the efforts that have been made to separate the adjudication function within the GMC, and also unfair to those working within the system who I am sure act with great integrity. But I think that criticism would continue to have been made.
Second, I think there will be opportunities to improve the process, some of which will flow from the powers we are given under the Act, and some of which will be consequential on our independent status. In particular these may enable us to implement better and more disciplined management of cases, something the GMC has been anxious to achieve. If in turn this will allow the process to be speeded up, this would be better for doctors under scrutiny, for complainants and witnesses, and for the fairness of decision making. Incidentally, this should restrain the increasing cost of the whole fitness to practise process, most of which will continue to fall on doctors through their registration fees and their contributions to defence and protection bodies.
Third, as and when other regulatory bodies pass their adjudication function to us, as the GOC will be doing, we can bring some consistency of approach and of decision making across the healthcare professions.
Tell us about the preparatory work that is taking place for the transfer of adjudication from the GMC to OHPA in April 2011.
We have to create OHPA as an organisation, and to settle some infrastructure issues – location, IT and staffing. Then we have to prepare a new set of procedural rules and consult publicly on them. We also have to settle the arrangements under which we will be funded by the GMC, and in due course the other regulators, for the work we will be doing. Finally, before we begin, we have to prepare to carry out the adjudication work itself, and familiarise the OHPA panels with the new rules and procedures. We have a small transition team in place helping me and the other non-executive directors, Pamela Charlwood and Andrew Colquhoun, who have just been appointed, and we are in the process of recruiting a chief executive who can then build a permanent management team to take this work forward.
What do you see as the biggest challenges for OHPA?
Getting all this done in time. April 2011 may seem a long way off, but it doesn’t look like it to me!
Who, what and when?
From April 2011 the GMC will continue to be responsible for:
- setting the standards for professional practice for doctors
- investigating complaints about doctors
- deciding whether or not to refer a doctor to a fitness to practise hearing
- setting indicative sanctions guidance, i.e. the guidance that OHPA panels will use to decide which sanctions are appropriate for particular conduct, health or performance issues.
OHPA’s responsibilities will be to:
- decide whether a doctor’s fitness to practise is impaired
- ensure the safety of patients and the public by restricting or removing a doctor’s right to practise where appropriate
- consider the need for temporary sanctions (interim orders) restricting or suspending a doctor’s right to practise prior to a full hearing.