The fitness to practise committee of the Medical Council, which decides whether doctors against whom complaints are made should be found guilty of professional misconduct, will in future be made up of a majority of lay people, if proposals published yesterday are implemented.
The long awaited draft heads of a new Medical Practitioners Bill, which makes the proposal, does not however state that the majority of members on the main body of the Medical Council should be lay people.
The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, had indicated earlier this year she wanted to see a lay majority on the council. However as the Bill is set out it is more likely that the majority of those on the medical council will be doctors.
The draft Bill states that the council should have 25 members, 12 of them elected or selected by the medical profession. The other 13 "will not be nominated or elected by the medical profession but may include some medically qualified members".
Seven of these 13 will be lay people. In addition one member each will be nominated by the Royal Irish Academy, the Health Service Executive, An Bord Altranais, and the Health and Social Care Professionals Council. And two people with the necessary qualifications will be nominated by the Minister.
Members of local authorities are precluded from being members and the Bill says only registered doctors can be elected president or vice-president of the council.
Meanwhile the 172-page Bill deals in detail with the functions of the council and says its object is to protect the public and "exercise its functions in the public interest".
It also puts an onus on doctors to remain up to date and says the council has a duty to satisfy itself doctors are maintaining their competence. It is left up to the council to develop "a scheme" to ensure it fulfils this duty. Earlier this year the council announced plans to audit the practices of 1,000 doctors every year but this could not be made compulsory without legislation.
Where a doctor fails to co-operate with these audits, the Bill provides for the council to make a complaint to its preliminary proceedings committee, the committee which will look at complaints and decide if they should be inquired into by its fitness to practise committee.
It says complaints may be made to the preliminary proceedings committee by either the medical council itself or any member of the public. And it says the committee will make "all reasonable efforts to keep the complainant informed".
There is a new section dealing with people who falsely represent themselves as being doctors or who "with intent to deceive" are suspected of claiming to be a registered doctor.
If the council has reasonable grounds for concern that a person is acting in this way it should report the matter to the Garda and the Minister for Health and "may seek an injunction in the High Court requiring the person to cease" their activities, the Bill states.
And it says a person shall be liable to a fine of up to €3,000 or imprisonment for up to six months or both if they falsely represent themselves as being registered as a doctor.
While the Bill provides for fitness to practise inquiries to be held in public, they won't be held in public if the doctor under investigation or any witness, which would include the complainant, objects.
A witness before a committee of inquiry is entitled to the same immunities and privileges as a witness before a court, it says.
The proposed legislation has now been put out to public consultation until September 15th.