About OHPA
The Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA) was to be the new, independent body set up under the Health and Social Care Act 2008. It was created to ensure clear separation between the investigation of fitness to practise cases by the General Medical Council (GMC) and the General Optical Council (GOC) and the process of determining whether a professional’s ‘fitness to practise’ is impaired.
The introduction of independent adjudication was designed to bring increased confidence to the public, patients and health professionals that decisions about the fitness to practice of doctors and optician are impartial, consistent, transparent, and separate from the regulators, the professions and Government.
Had the programme gone ahead, OHPA would have begun making decisions on fitness to practise cases brought before it by the GMC and at a later date the GOC.
OHPA’s main responsibilities would have been to:
- Decide whether a doctor’s or optician’s fitness to practise is impaired;
- Ensure the safety of patients and the public by restricting a healthcare professional’s practice or removing them from the register for their profession where appropriate;
- Consider the need for temporary sanctions (interim orders) that will restrict a health professional’s practice or suspend them from practice prior to a full hearing;
- Decide whether a healthcare professional should be allowed to practise again after being removed from the register for fitness to practise reasons.
In December 2010, following a consultation exercise, the Coalition Government decided not to proceed with OHPA and to repeal the relevant legislative provisions when the opportunity arose. This will take effect on 30 June 2012.
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