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<p>The information requested is not held by the Department. The nine <a href="http://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/regulators/statutory-regulators-directory"
target="_blank">health and care professional regulatory bodies</a> within the United
Kingdom are responsible for operational matters concerning the discharge of their
statutory duties including fitness-to-practise (FtP) investigations against their
registrants. Relevant information provided by the General Medical Council (GMC), Nursing
and Midwifery Council (NMC) and General Dental Council (GDC) is included below.</p><p>
</p><p>The GMC reports that four European Economic Area (EEA) doctors and no non-EEA
doctors have appeared at a FtP tribunal <del class="ministerial">and been suspended</del>
due wholly or partly to lack of English language skills, since its legislation changed
in June 2014 to introduce inadequate English language skills as a grounds for finding
a doctor’s fitness to practise is impaired. <ins class="ministerial">Of the four,
two were suspended and two had conditions imposed on their registration. Conditions
restrict a doctor’s practice or require them to take remedial action. In these cases,
the purpose of conditions is to help protect patients while allowing the doctor to
remedy any deficiencies in their practice or knowledge of English. </ins>In addition,
since the GMC was given new powers in relation to the language skills of doctors,
it has dealt with 3,289 registration applications from EEA doctors. 1,970 of them
were able to demonstrate that they met the English language requirements as part of
their application and were granted registration with a licence to practise. 1,319
doctors were registered but have not been granted a licence to practise either because
they did not provide any evidence of their English language skills or the evidence
they provided was insufficient. Doctors cannot practise in the UK without a licence
to practise.</p><p> </p><p>The NMC reports that until legislative change took effect
in January 2016, it did not record poor English language skills as a case type within
FtP. Previously all cases were recorded under an umbrella category of ‘Lack of competence
– communication issues’. This category covered a range of communication topics including
failure to delegate appropriately. Since the new language control power was introduced
in 2016 the NMC has been coding English language skills as a separate code.</p><p>
</p><p>The GDC reports that following an update to its Standards in 2013, it takes
the requirement to be sufficiently fluent in written and spoken English into account
when assessing FtP cases. Since this change there have been no suspensions and one
EEA Dentist has been struck-off the GDC register where the category of ‘not fluent
in English’ was recorded as a consideration. The GDC notes that as a result of recent
legislative change, it is taking forward associated changes to registration processes
and FtP rules, which will result in further language control requirements being introduced
by the end of summer.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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