Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care v General Pharmaceutical Council & Anor

On an appeal against a professional disciplinary sanction, the High Court must correct legal or material factual errors and serious procedural irregularity, while exercising caution before disturbing an evaluative decision by a specialist committee.

In assessing sanction, the committee may consider the context, lack of premeditation, remorse, insight, remediation and the absence of repetition. An absence of racist intent will usually carry little weight where the words are objectively racist, but it does not necessarily invalidate a sanction decision.

Conditions are not limited in law to clinical or performance cases, but they may serve no useful function where there is no realistic risk of repetition. A warning may properly suffice to protect the public, maintain confidence and uphold professional standards.

The Professional Standards Authority appealed against the sanction imposed by the General Pharmaceutical Council’s Fitness to Practise Committee on a registered pharmacist.

The Committee found that two of four comments made at a public Al Quds Day rally were antisemitic and offensive, and that the conduct amounted to serious misconduct impairing fitness to practise on public-interest grounds. It imposed a warning.

The Authority challenged the sanction as insufficient, argued that conditions should have been considered, and alleged inadequate reasons. The central issue was whether the Committee had erred in imposing a warning rather than a more severe sanction.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Committee’s decision was an evaluative sanction decision. The court applied the principles stated in Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care v Health and Care Professions Council & Roberts [2020] EWHC 1906 (Admin): an appeal court may correct material errors of fact or law and serious procedural irregularity, but should exercise caution before disturbing primary factual or evaluative conclusions.
2. The Committee was entitled to treat the comments’ lack of scripting or premeditation, the politically charged circumstances, fasting, and abuse from counter-demonstrators as relevant context. Those matters did not justify the comments, but assisted in assessing their seriousness.
3. The Committee gave excessive prominence to the finding that the registrant had not intended to be antisemitic or offensive. Where words are objectively obviously racist, absence of racist intent will rarely count significantly in the registrant’s favour and may itself raise concern about insight. Nevertheless, the error did not vitiate the sanction. The Committee had properly considered the distress caused, genuine remorse, the chastening effect of the proceedings and the complete absence of repetition since 2017.
4. The question was the appropriate sanction in 2023, not at the time of the conduct. The Committee was entitled to find no risk whatsoever of repetition and to conclude that a warning, rather than suspension, was sufficient to maintain public confidence and uphold professional standards.
5. The Committee was entitled to regard conditions as more suitable for clinical or performance deficiencies. It did not hold that conditions could never be imposed in other cases. Given the finding of no risk of repetition, a training or similar condition would have served no useful function.
6. The reasons were adequate. The Committee made comprehensible factual findings, explained its inferences and gave a methodical account of the sanction decision. Its overemphasis of the registrant’s lack of intent did not make the reasons insufficient. The warning could have expressly referred to the antisemitic nature of the comments, but substitution of different wording was unnecessary.

The judgment itself describes an earlier disciplinary decision and remittal:

• High Court (Administrative Court) The Authority successfully challenged the Committee’s first decision in Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care v General Pharmaceutical Council [2021] EWHC 1692 (Admin); the matter was remitted for reconsideration.
• Fitness to Practise Committee Following the remitted hearing, the Committee found two comments antisemitic and imposed a warning.
• High Court (Administrative Court) The present appeal against sanction was dismissed.