Deciding to assess a concern

Where we won’t carry out an initial assessment

When we receive a concern, we’re legally required to assess if a PA or AA may pose any current and ongoing risk to public protection. We’ll consider:

• a PA or AA’s overall ability to perform their individual role
• their professional and personal behaviour
• the impact of any health condition on their ability to provide care to a sufficient standard.

We will close concerns as soon as possible if they don’t meet our thresholds or aren’t matters we can assess. Some may 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 don't carry out an initial assessment, we'll share the concern with you and your employer and ask you to consider it as part of your ongoing appraisal.

Where we will carry out an initial assessment

If we decide to carry out an initial assessment, we'll usually contact you to let you know. We'll open an initial assessment if we believe the concern raises a question about your fitness to practise. This could be because of:

• misconduct
• an inability to provide care to a sufficient standard