GDC welcomes Professional Standards Authority 2020/21 performance review

The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) has today published its report on the GDC’s performance for the period 2020/21, which shows that we met 17 of the 18 Standards of Good Regulation.

We particularly welcome the PSA’s recognition of work undertaken to improve our approach in relation to interim order referrals, and to reduce the time it takes to reach an interim order committee decision once a relevant concern has been raised.

The PSA found that we did not meet Standard 15, specifically with regards to the part of the Standard which relates to timely resolution of fitness to practise cases. All of the principles set out in the PSA’s Standards are important and we agree that fitness to practise cases often take too long to resolve.

We know that part of this is due to our outdated and prescriptive legislation, and we have called for increased flexibility in the upcoming regulatory reform.

In the areas we can influence however, our timeliness performance is not where we need it to be. We have spoken previously about our commitment to addressing this and we welcome the PSA’s recognition of our work in this area.

The full performance review report is available to read on the PSA’s website.