What to refer
If your concern about your employee raises a question about their fitness to practise, you should refer this to us.
Your employee will be fit to practise when they have the skills, knowledge, character and health to practise their profession safely.
Concerns about your employee’s conduct, competence, health or character that suggest they are unfit or unsafe to practise their profession without restriction, or at all, are likely to be concerns that raise a question about their fitness to practise.
If you decide that you should refer the concern about your employee to us, you should first ensure that they are registered with us.
You can do this by checking our online Register. We can only consider concerns about employees who are registered with us.
When to refer
The point at which you should refer the concern to us will depend on the nature of the concern and the risk this raises for members of the public, including service users.
You should refer a concern to us immediately if it raises serious concern about your employee’s fitness to practise. This would include concerns that your employee has:
Refer concern immediately if your employee has:
- crossed professional boundaries or their behaviour has been indecent or sexually motivated;
- been violent or committed reckless or deliberately harmful acts;
- abused their position of trust;
- exploited a vulnerable person;
- a health condition that affects their ability to practise safely and it is not being managed
- been self-prescribing or attending work under the influence of alcohol or drugs;
- been dishonest or fraudulent;
- been charged with, cautioned for or convicted of a criminal offence;
- hidden their mistakes or blocked your investigation;
- been dismissed, suspended or had their status downgraded as a result of your investigation;
- resigned while you are investigating the concern, or as a result of the outcome of your investigation
Other concerns that might raise a concern about your employee’s fitness to practise and should normally be referred to us when you know the outcome of your own investigation or disciplinary process.
Concerns to normally refer following the outcome of your own internal process include:
- failure to act in the best interests of service users;
- serious breaches of service users’ confidentiality or data protection requirements;
- serious or repeated failing in service user care;
- adverse findings by another regulatory body;
- fraudulent or incorrect entry onto the HCPC Register;
- other serious actions or behaviours which affect public confidence in the profession.