3. What happens next?

If your complaint is about one of our registrants, we will do the following.

• we will write to tell you that we have received your complaint;
• a fitness to practise case manager will deal with your case. We will give you their details;
• we will write to the registrant to tell them that a complaint has been made against them; and
• we will also carry out an investigation into your complaint.

When we write to the registrant concerned, we must pass them a copy of your complaint (and any other relevant documents) so that they know the details of the complaint. If you are worried about this, please let us know. At this stage the allegation is drafted so that the registrant knows what the complaint is about.

We will pass all of this information to a panel of our investigating committee. They will meet in private and consider documents available to see whether we need to take any further action. Each panel is made up of at least three people, including a chairperson, someone from the relevant profession and a lay member (someone who is not on our register). This panel does not make a decision about whether the complaint is proven. They only decide whether it raises any concern about a reistrant’s fitness to practise. If they decide that a complaint should go forward, they say that there is a ‘case to answer’. If the panel decides that there is a case to answer, they will refer the case to one of our fitness to practise committees.

• The conduct and competence committee deals with cases about misconduct, lack of competence, and convictions and cautions.
• The health committee deals with cases where the health of the registrant may be affecting their ability to practise.
• The investigating committee will continue to deal with cases where an entry to the register may have been made fraudulently or incorrectly.

If the panel decides that the complaint does not need to be taken any further, they will give full reasons for their decision and provide you with copies of this. We will write to you (and to the registrant) to tell you about this. We cannot consider the same complaint twice.

If the investigating committee decides that there is a case to answer the information is in the public domain, however, we will not publicise the information until four weeks before the final hearing date. At that stage the name of the registrant, their registration number and the allegation will be on our website.

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