Dear Ms Haddou

Thank you for your email dated 27 January 2019, in which you ask for the
number of fitness to practise cases involving allegations of sexual
misconduct.

We are treating this as a request under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA).

We will deal with your request as promptly as possible and at the latest,
within 20 working days of receiving it, as required by the FOIA. If you
have any queries about your request please do contact us using this email
address, or the address below.

The reference number for your request is FR05982.

Yours sincerely

Maxine Pryce

Information Governance Manager

Health and Care Professions Council

Park House, 184 – 186 Kennington Park Road, London SE11 4BU

[1]www.hcpc-uk.org 

To sign up to our e-newsletter, please email [2][email address] 

Please consider the environment before printing this email 

Correspondence is welcome in English or Welsh / Gallwch ohebu yn Gymraeg
neu Saesneg.

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Our Ref. FR05982

Dear Ms Haddou

Thank you for your email dated 27 January 2019, in which you ask for the
number of fitness to practise cases involving allegations of sexual
misconduct.

Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(FOIA).

Please find below our response to your questions.

1.    Please state the number of allegations you have received of

a) sexual misconduct

b) sexual harassment

c) sexual assault

d) rape

Allegedly committed by staff regulated by your organisation in each of the
last five calendar years: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

2.    For each of these allegations received, please state:

a) Whether the alleged victim was a member of the public, a patient or a
health professional

b) Whether you launched an investigation

c) The outcome of the case

We are unable to provide you with this information as we are unable to run
a report on our case management system (CMS) to determine this. This is
because the allegation field, which is not a mandatory field on our CMS,
is not always completed. Therefore, in order for us to provide you with a
full response we would need to examine all fitness to practise (FTP)
cases. This would exceed the cost limit under Section 12 of the FOIA, that
being £450, which is charged at £25 per hour for employee time (a total of
18 hours).

We estimate to access each case and extract the relevant information would
take 7 minutes per case. Between 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018, we
received a total of 2,302 FTP complaints. 2,302 multiplied by 7 minutes
equates to 268 hours, therefore exceeding the cost limit.

3.    Please provide any official definitions used by your organisation
classify allegations of a sexual nature (such as the four listed in
question 1) and any official guidance/flowcharts for dealing with such
cases.

The classification system that we have developed is currently at the pilot
stage and includes the following allegations of sexual misconduct:

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Grooming |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Rape (of an adult) |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Rape  (of a minor) |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Sexual abuse of a minor - non-service user |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Sexual abuse of a minor - service user |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Sexual assault of an adult - non-service user |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Sexual assault of an adult - service user |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Inappropriate personal relationship with a service user or carer |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|Sexual relationship with a service user or carer |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

We will be able to provide more information about classification method
once it has been evaluated and successfully implemented. We hope this will
happen at the beginning of the next financial year.  

For guidance on how we deal with such cases, please refer to the serious
concerns section of our Threshold policy for fitness to practise
investigations. This is available on our website at
[1]https://www.hcpc-uk.org/resources/policy....

Internal review

If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been
handled, you can request a review by writing to:

Governance Team

Health and Care Professions Council

Park House

184 - 186 Kennington Park Road

London

SE11 4BU

Email: [2][email address]       

If you remain dissatisfied with the handling of your request or complaint,
you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at:

The Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113 

Email: [3][email address]     

There is no charge for making an appeal.

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information

Health and Care Professions Council

Park House, 184 – 186 Kennington Park Road, London SE11 4BU

[4]www.hcpc-uk.org 

To sign up to our e-newsletter, please email [5][email address] 

Please consider the environment before printing this email 

Correspondence is welcome in English or Welsh / Gallwch ohebu yn Gymraeg
neu Saesneg.

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