“Regulations may provide that a health care professional of a prescribed description may not perform any primary medical services for which a Primary Care Trust … is responsible unless he is in a list maintained under the Regulations by a Primary Care Trust …”
“… [A] PCT shall … refuse to admit a medical practitioner to its medical performers list if … (c) he is included in the medical performers list of another PCT, unless he has given notice to that Trust that he wishes to withdraw from that list.”
“53(1) … [No] medical practitioner shall perform medical services under the contract unless he is – (a) included in a medical performers list for a PCT in England; (b) not suspended from that list or from the Medical register; and (c) not subject to interim suspension underSection 41A of the Medical Act 1983 (Interim Orders).” (a) included in a medical performers list for a PCT in England; (b) not suspended from that list or from the Medical register; and (c) not subject to interim suspension underSection 41A of the Medical Act 1983 (Interim Orders).”
“Suspension as a Neutral Act 18.1. Suspension is a neutral act, not a disciplinary sanction. It is intended to protect the interests of patients, staff and the doctor who is suspended. It should therefore be a rare event. Misuse of the suspension power can result in injustice, in damage to the doctor’s reputation, career and personal life, and in waste of NHS resources. Therefore it should only be imposed once the PCT has considered whether there is a case to be answered and whether it has reasonable and proper cause to suspend. This is likely to be where there is: • Compelling evidence of culpability, of seriously sub-standard performance or lack of competence; or • Sufficient evidence to warrant suspension pending detailed further investigation; or • An allegation or allegations that are sufficiently serious to justify suspension whilst an investigation is undertaken. 18.2. Suspension means that although a doctor’s name stays on the PCT’s Performers List, he is treated as though his name has been removed from it. As a result he cannot perform any aspect of any primary medical service for any patient. 18.3. For these reasons, alternatives to suspension in the interests of the doctor and of patients should be considered carefully before any decision is taken to suspend him. For example the PCT could ask the doctor to withdraw voluntarily from performing part of his normal duties, and/or find him suitable alternative NHS work away from direct patient contact, whilst investigations continue. Duration of Suspension 18.4. Suspensions should last no longer than is necessary. Suspension by the PCT can last no longer than six months except where: • The suspension is the result of regulatory body or criminal investigations or proceedings and the PCT is awaiting the outcome of those investigation or proceedings • A PCT has decided to remove or contingently remove a doctor from its list, it may impose a suspension until the doctor has decided whether to appeal against the decision to remove (or contingently remove him) or, if he does appeal, until the outcome of that appeal – whichever is the later. 18.5. In all other circumstances a suspension can only extend beyond six months only with the prior of approval of the FHSAA. If the PCT does not apply to the FHSAA for an extension, before the six month period expires, the suspension lapses. When it considers an application for extension, the FHSAA will look for evidence that the PCT is taking all possible steps to conclude its inquiries. If the FHSAA agrees to extend the period of suspension, it will do so for a finite period. 18.6. This means that it is essential for PCTs to commit the resources necessary to deal with the cause of the suspension and to take substantive action to remove/contingently remove the doctor from the Performers List, or to permit him to return to work without conditions, as quickly as possible.”
“The Court notes that the Convention institutions have consistently taken the view that Article 6.1 does not apply to proceedings for interim relief. The purpose of such proceedings is to deal with a temporary state of affairs pending the outcome of the main proceedings; consequently they do not result in a determination of civil rights and obligations (see X v U.K. No.7990/77 and APIS v Slovakia ”
“Unlike certain other disciplinary sanctions that might have been imposed on the applicants (warning, censure and reprimand …), the suspension of which they complained undoubtedly constituted a direct and material interference with the right to continue to exercise the medical profession. The fact that suspension was temporary did not prevent its impairing that right; in the ‘contestations’ (disputes) contemplated by Article 6.1 the actual existence of a ‘civil’ right may, of course, be at stake but so may the scope of such a right or the manner in which the beneficiary may avail himself thereof.”
“For myself, I regard it as highly likely that the interim suspension hearings engage Article 6. I regard the fact that it has not been argued fully as no impediment in the way in which we must proceed in this application and whilst I do not have any deep reservations as to the applicability of the Article I would have preferred full argument being to see the exact working out of the Strasbourg jurisprudence and to identify the precise point at which, and the precise reasons why, Article 6 is engaged.”
“The key phrases in the judgments of the Strasbourg court which describe the cases in which a limited review of the facts is sufficient are ‘specialised areas of the law’ (Byran case 21 EHRR 342, 361, Paragraph 47) and ‘classic exercise of administrative discretion’ (Kingsley’s case 33 EHRR 288, 302, Paragraph 53). What kind of decisions are these phrases referring to? I think that one has to take them together. The notion of a specialised area of the law should not be taken too literally. After all, I suppose carriage of goods by sea could be said to be a specialised area of the law, but no one would suggest that shipping disputes should be decided otherwise than by normal judicial methods. It seems to me that what the court had in mind was those areas of the law such as regulatory and welfare schemes in which decision-making is customarily entrusted to administrators. And when the court in Kingsley spoke of the classic exercise of administrative discretion, it was referring to the ultimate decision as to whether Kingsley was a fit and proper person and not to the particular findings of fact which had to be made on the way to arriving at that decision. In the same way, the decision as to whether the accommodation was suitable for Runa Begum was a classic exercise of administrative discretion, even though it involved preliminary findings of fact.”
“The Court agrees with the Commission that the right relied upon by the applicants may be likened to the right of property embodied in Article 1: by dint of their own work, the applicants had built up a clientele: this had in many respects the nature of a private right and constituted an asset and, hence, a possession within the meaning of the first sentence of Article 1. This provision was accordingly applicable in the present case. The refusal to register the applicants as certified accountants radically affected the conditions of their professional activities and the scope of those activities was reduced. Their income fell, as did the value of their clientele and, more generally, their business. Consequently, there was interference with their right to the peaceful enjoyment of their possessions.”
“The question of affiliation to the Social Insurance system was a decisive element for the running of the practice.”
“… Mr Gordon had no persuasive answer to Mr Sales’ analysis that there is no middle position occupied by the livelihood of a self employed person, between marketable goodwill and future income. In so far as the Scottish courts may [see Adams] have decided otherwise, we respectfully disagree. Whether individual claimants in the present proceedings who are self employed have marketable goodwill is beyond our present competence to decide. It is, we think, essentially a side issue in the present proceedings.”
“An operator’s licence is a possession for the purposes of Article 1PI.”