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	England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Nursing and Midwifery Council v Tanta [2014] EWHC 3829 (Admin) (31 October 2014) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2014/3829.html Cite as: [2014] EWHC 3829 (Admin)

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL
		31 October 2014

1. MR JUSTICE DINGEMANS: This is an application by the Nursing and Midwifery Council for a 9 month extension of the interim order which has been imposed on the respondent suspending her registration as a nurse. The respondent is not present nor represented, but that is very often the case in these matters where there is no funding provided for a respondent in this situation and they have, almost as a result of their Interim Suspension Order, lost their employment.
2. This goes back to an investigation which started in 2005 by Gwent Police into mistreatment neglect and deaths of a number of patients in a nursing home. It was not until May 2011 that the matters came up before the applicant and an Interim Suspension Order was made on 4 May 2011. That was extend on 1 November 2012 for 12 months and extended again on 1 November 2013 for a period of 12 months and the order has been reviewed on regular occasions by the applicant.
3. If this case had come before me without any substantive progress on the hearing of the application, I must say even given the seriousness of the matter, I might have been minded to refuse the extensions given the chronology. But it is right to record that the applicant has brought proceedings against six registrants including the respondent. Two of those are attending and contesting the proceedings. It appears the other four are not attending, that includes this respondent.
4. The case has now finished for the Nursing and Midwifery Council and apparently today there are submissions being made in respect of the two other applicants. It seems from the very helpful chronology put in on behalf of the applicant by Miss Hall, to whom I am very grateful for her submissions, that there will be a consideration of those submissions on 11 and 12 December and the hearings will resume certainly as against the four registrants who have not turned up, perhaps against the other two, depending on the outcome of the submissions.
5. There are ten scheduled hearing dates from 16 March 2015 to 29 May 2015. It is an extraordinarily long period of time for the defence to be allowed for those submissions, but I accept there are a number of stages to go through including; finding the facts; determining whether the findings are sufficiently serious to justify a sanction; and then deciding on the sanction. Nevertheless it is a timetable that shows very considerable delay.
6. Notwithstanding all those facts, it does seem to me appropriate, given the seriousness of the original charges and the respondent's failure to engage either in the disciplinary process or in the interim suspension process, to grant one further final extension of time until 30 June 2015.
7. MISS HALL: My Lord I have handed forward two draft orders, one with the date that I requested and a blank one.
8. MR JUSTICE DINGEMANS: 4 pm on 30 June 2015. Thank you very much for your help. I know it is not you dealing with these things but the amount of time that one sees spent on proceedings that in the crown court would last a week is staggering.
9. MISS HALL: This is something that has been fed back to the panels on a number of occasions, the length of time they are taking to make the determinations and draft . . .
10. MR JUSTICE DINGEMANS: And it is all at public costs.
11. MISS HALL: It is being fed back and there is further training on those. I hope in the future they will not be as long.
12. MR JUSTICE DINGEMANS: That will then make things a lot easier because we would not be asked to extend these orders all the time, regardless of whether the registrant is guilty. Thank you very much for your help.
13. MISS HALL: I am grateful.