Nursing and Midwifery Council v Tanta

When deciding whether to extend an interim suspension of professional registration, the court must balance the seriousness of the allegations and the registrant’s engagement with the process against the length and progress of the disciplinary proceedings. Serious allegations and a failure to participate may justify a further extension, but prolonged delay remains a significant concern. An extension should therefore be treated as exceptional and, where granted after substantial delay, should ordinarily be final and subject to a clear end date.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council applied for a further nine-month extension of an interim order suspending the respondent’s nursing registration. The order had first been made in May 2011 and had already been extended twice. The underlying disciplinary proceedings concerned allegations arising from a police investigation into mistreatment, neglect and deaths at a nursing home.

The respondent neither attended nor participated in the disciplinary or interim-order proceedings. The central issue was whether the seriousness of the allegations and the procedural position justified another extension despite the considerable delay before the substantive proceedings could be completed.

1. Application granted. The interim suspension order was extended until 4 pm on 30 June 2015.
2. The court considered the chronology and the substantial delay carefully. If there had been no substantive progress in the proceedings, the court might have refused the extension despite the seriousness of the allegations ([2014] EWHC 3829 (Admin), paras 2–5).
3. Relevant circumstances supporting the extension were the seriousness of the original charges, the progress already made by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, and the respondent’s failure to engage either with the disciplinary process or with the interim suspension process (paras 3–6).
4. The remaining timetable was lengthy. It included findings of fact, consideration of whether any findings were sufficiently serious to justify sanction, and determination of the appropriate sanction. The court nevertheless accepted that these stages remained to be completed (paras 4–5).
5. The extension was granted as one further final extension. The court expressed concern about the time and public cost involved in disciplinary proceedings of this length, and indicated that repeated applications to extend interim orders should be avoided where possible (paras 6, 8–12).