NI social care regulator Fitness to Practise modernisation receives Royal Assent
The Northern Ireland Social Care Council (NISCC) have announced their proposals to modernise the systems they use to regulate standards for the registered workforce have received Royal Assent and will now be applied in all assessments of a registrant’s ability to practise safely and competently in social care services.
These changes offer a wider range of actions for NISCC to apply in cases where registered workers have not met the standard expected by NISCC for their conduct or practice. This allows NISCC to apply a sanction that is more proportionate to each particular case. The regulator says it will also streamline the regulatory and investigative processes, minimising the impact on all parties involved in the case.
NISCC Chief Executive, Colum Conway (pictured) said: “Fitness to Practise is a new era for social care regulation in Northern Ireland. This model provides greater opportunity to improve standards in the workforce. Fitness to Practise provides NISCC with the flexibility to apply remedial conditions to improve an individual’s practice, but still retains the facility to remove from the workforce the small minority of workers who pose a significant risk to service users and the public.”
The Fitness to Practice model links closely to the November 2015 NISCC Standards of Conduct and Practice. Copies of these Standards are available from the Standards section of the NISCC website.
The Rules to govern the Fitness to Practise processes are detailed in the ‘Fitness to Practice Rules’. Guidance materials for registrants and employers to introduce them to the new Fitness to Practise processes will be published shortly.
Employer information sessions will be held over the coming months around NI with details to follow.
