Mundane details

On this bright winter's morning the action in the HPC FTP rooms was slow. The only hearing in progress was that of Mr S (paramedic) whose case had come to the HPC from the police. There had been a traffic accident, a breathaliser, an admission of alcoholism. This had led to a conviction. Mr S was not present at the HPC hearing, which begun today and was over by lunch time. The Panel's verdict was flying from the web-site by the middle of the afternoon. No witnesses were involved, and no legal representation had been engaged from outside to present or defend the case. It seemed to be a straight forward regurgitation of a case already held. The only people on stage when I entered the room were the court stenographer, the HPC case presenter (Mr W), the HPC Hearing Officer (Mr S), and the legal adviser (Mr P). They were discussing their luck in the office secret santa.

After a short while the chairman of the Panel popped his head round the door to ask the legal adviser to come and give his legal advice in the little room round the corner where the panel are able to discuss things in private.

In the wait I was able to address a few questions to Mr W who had been good enough to introduce himself. He recognised my name from a series of email exchanges over the previous weeks.

Mr W is one of 12 officers employed at the HPC in this function. They are drawn from a range of different backgrounds, many of them from other regulatory bodies (Financial Services, Border Control, some ex-police, and so on). Some of them also have legal training but Mr W does not. This confused me. I have been impressed by the highly stylised way this role had been filled in the other cases I had observed, and had become quite sure this function was brought in from the outside. One of the registrant's representatives had told me this as a matter of self-evident fact, in fact. But no.

Mr W said that when a case came through from the Police there was seldom any need for the HPC to engage a solicitor as they could rely on the evidence that had been produced through this other legal procedure. This also confused me, and in fact I understood him to tell me the exact opposite. I had assumed that a case coming from the courts would need a professional law person to understand the translation necessary to bring something from one domain of law into another. As it turns out, the administrators at the HPC appear to simply be picking up a case and repeating it: a sort of empty echo, but one with serious consequences for the person in question.

I asked if he was also a kind of researcher, someone who must go out and discover the facts of a case and find the witnesses who would come and speak. Not really. This was more likely delegated to a solicitor who would be instructed to act on behalf of the HPC. It was less 'research', and more 'investigation', of course. The kinds of facts that are produced through this process are not on the side of knowledge and truth as we know them in science and practice. They are a different quality of knowledge, and will ultimately be written with the weight of State law, not with the weight of the real - something that interests me a lot.

After the panel had presented its conclusions (click the heading of this blog to read them for yourself) they withdrew once more to consider the sanction. Before they left the room they were reminded that a new set of sanctions had been issued by the HPC and had come into force today. The new sanctions had been created by the Conduct and Competence Panel (made up of all kinds of professions and lay people), and written in the Indicative Sanctions Policy, both of which (no doubt) can be consulted on the web.


Post script. When the Panel exited they stopped and said hello. They were returning at 1.30pm to be the Panel for the next hearing of the day. This gave the Chairman of the Panel the chance to say a little about themselves. He was a Chairman. He would be Chairman again this afternoon.The Lay Member would also be returning. The other gentleman was the Paramedic Panel Member, so he won't be returning. They would slot in the relevant Panel member to represent the next registrant. So, out of the 7 people present (8 including me), only one has any idea of the realities and practicalities of the registrants actual real work.