HM IHAS News

LETBs engagement with independents call

The Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service (ISCAS) has published its 2010 Annual Report and launched its new certificate of membership so the public can better recognise members who comply with the Code of Practice as an indicator of quality.

Medical revalidation, the process by which doctors throughout the UK who want to retain their licence to practise in the UK will need to demonstrate they are up to date and fit to practise is expected to roll-out late 2012. Doctors need to ensure that they find out who their Responsible Officer (RO), participate in annual appraisal and familiarise themselves with the General Medical Council’s (GMC) Good Medical Practice Framework and Supporting information guidance.

Patient safety is under threat unless providers adhere to Independent Healthcare Advisory Services (IHAS) policy positions on advertising cosmetic surgery and cosmetic treatments.

The Independent Healthcare Advisory Service (IHAS) welcomes the recent publication from the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) Professional Standards for Cosmetic Surgery. The standards clearly state that only registered doctors, dentists and nurses should be carrying out cosmetic injectable procedures and only appropriately qualified doctors carry out invasive cosmetic surgery. This position directly supports Treatments You Can Trust, the IHAS website to guide those thinking of having injectable cosmetic treatments. IHAS does not believe standards go far enough in defining the qualifications required to undertake cosmetic surgery and also believe that there are occasions and certain types of procedures when others apart from those three professions could use class 3B and Class 4 lasers in cosmetic practice. Therefore the standards come with a number of cautions and concerns about the content in relation to other areas of cosmetic interventions.

The Department of Health’s Review of the Regulations of Cosmetic Interventions has called for evidence to assist it in its deliberations. There are two areas where IHAS is working on behalf of its members and will submit unique evidence.

This is the 13th year of ISCAS, originally formed in response to a report by the Health Select Committee, and developed on best practice with external adjudication by an independent body which enables both complainants and healthcare providers (ISCAS members) to find closure of otherwise intractable complaints.

Following Winterbourne View there must be robust consequences for Boards of directors where the organisation they lead fails to give proper care. The Department of Health (DH) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) committed to examine what powers they had to bring about those robust consequences, and what could be done to strengthen what they have. The Francis report, following Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, highlighted that all directors of bodies coming under CQC should be fit and proper persons’, and powers of interventions be given to CQC if they were not. The DH considered additional prosecution powers. Norman Lamb MP, Minister for Care and Support, then consulted the opinion of interested parties on the combined proposals, including the independent healthcare sector, perhaps conscious that there is also much good experience to be garnered from the healthcare world. He proposed that there should be a new registration requirement covering the fitness of directors of Boards; and to improve the way existing sanctions are used to prosecute providers who failed to give proper care.

In the recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) State of Care Report 2011/12 widespread coverage was given to the NHS and Care Homes, but the good results in the independent acute sector went un-remarked. We point out here some key indicators for the independent acute sector, quoting from the CQC report.

Guidance which outlines a set of key principles that employers should apply where the conduct or performance of a healthcare worker comes into question and a substantiated risk to patient or public safety has been identified has been produced by NHS Employers, the employers' organisation for the NHS in England and Independent Healthcare Advisory Services (IHAS).