Research commissioned by the Professional Standards Authority, found that whilst “only a minority of health care professionals go through fitness to practise (FtP) procedures” evidence shows certain “demographics and professions are over-represented in complaints”.  The demographic and professions that are most over-represented were found to be male, older, overseas-trained, doctors, dentists, chiropractors, social workers and paramedics. 

The research further concluded that over-representation of certain groups in referrals “is linked to country of origin or ethnicity (i.e. BAME) or language proficiency” of the professionals.

Common complaints

The research included a review of evidence and cases from all of the UK’s health and care regulators.  It found from this work that the main complaints commonly related to:

• clinical care (for example, errors in treatment);
• Unprofessional conduct; or
• poor communication.

The proportion of these complaints change according to different professions.  The research confirmed that misconduct can have an individual as well as social and environmental (workplace) dimension and that environmental factors played an important role in cases of misconducts including stressful and competitive work environments and work culture of blame rather than learning.