Kara Louise Hannigan v The Nursing and Midwifery Council

When a professional disciplinary appeal succeeds because the original panel failed to address material arguments or give adequate reasons, the court has a wide discretion to quash the decision, remit the matter, or substitute a decision. Remittal requires a staged assessment.

1. The allegations must remain capable of being established on the evidence.
2. If proved, they must be capable of amounting to misconduct and supporting impairment.
3. The court must then balance the public interest in proper regulation and determination of allegations against finality, delay, fairness, justice and the utility of a further hearing.

The regulator’s assessment of the public interest receives particular weight, but the ultimate decision remains for the court.

A Fitness to Practise Committee found that the appellant, a nurse and former clinic manager, had bullied or harassed colleagues and had committed misconduct. It found her fitness to practise impaired and suspended her registration for 12 months.

The appellant challenged the factual findings, impairment decision and sanction. The Nursing and Midwifery Council accepted that the appeal was well-founded because the Committee had failed to engage with material arguments, give adequate reasons and take account of the appellant’s reflections on sanction.

The parties agreed that the appeal should be allowed but disagreed on the remedy. The appellant sought simple quashing. The Council sought remittal to a differently constituted panel, subject to the possibility of agreed removal from the Register.

The appeal was allowed. The matter was remitted to a differently constituted panel, but a further hearing would not be necessary if the appellant’s removal from the Register were agreed under rule 14.

1. Discretion and applicable factors. Under articles 29(9) and 38 of the Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001, and subject to CPR Part 52 and PD52D, the court could quash, remit with directions or substitute a decision. The discretion was wide and fact-specific. Relevant considerations included the public interest in proper regulation and professional standards, proper determination for both complainants and professionals, finality and promptness, fairness and justice, the age and nature of the allegations, and the utility of remittal.
2. Utility of remittal. The court should first ask whether the allegations were capable of being proved. The appellant had not shown that the evidence was incapable of belief or that the allegations were bound to fail. A remitted panel could accept the core evidence despite inconsistencies and powerful counter-arguments.
3. If the allegations were proved, they were capable of amounting to misconduct. A further panel could also find impairment based on conduct bringing the profession into disrepute or breaching fundamental professional tenets, despite the absence of patient harm.
4. The regulator was the body primarily charged with assessing the public interest, and its view deserved particular weight. It was not, however, determinative; the court retained responsibility for exercising its own discretion.
5. The public interest in a properly reasoned determination of serious allegations, and the need to avoid pre-empting the structured agreed-removal process, outweighed the substantial factors against remittal, including delay, the age of the events, the appellant’s previously unblemished career, her intention not to return to nursing and the real prospect that some or all allegations would ultimately fail.

The Registrar alone was to decide any application for agreed removal under rule 14(2B). The court did not direct how that discretion should be exercised.

The judgment records an appeal from decisions of the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s Fitness to Practise Committee. The appeal was allowed and the matter remitted.