Deciding to investigate a concern

Where we won't investigate

We receive several thousand concerns every year. We close approximately 80% of these without investigating as they don’t meet our thresholds or aren’t matters that we can investigate. We usually close these concerns immediately but some can take longer if they're more complex.

If someone tells you they're going to raise a concern about you and you don't hear anything from us you can assume that, if we received a concern, it was closed.

In a small number of cases where we won't investigate we'll share the concern with you and your responsible officer and ask you to consider it as part of your ongoing appraisal and revalidation.

If we need to ask your employer or responsible officer for information before we make a decision, we'll let you know first.

Where we will investigate

If we decide to investigate, we'll get in touch with you. We'll open an investigation if we believe the concern (if found proven) means we would need to restrict your practice. This could include:

• misconduct
• poor performance
• a criminal conviction or caution
• physical or mental ill-health that may impact your ability to practise medicine
• a determination by another regulatory body
• insufficient knowledge of English.