This Appeals Policy:

• is for any service user or client of an individual registered on the Accredited Practitioner Register™ (“Register”) who wishes to appeal a decision or finding in respect of said Practitioner by the Professional Conduct Review Committee (“PCRC”);
• can be used by individuals on the Register, members of the public or service users;
• sets out the process to be followed when submitting appeals to the Register and how the Register will review and respond to the same;
• is also for use by our members to ensure they deal with all appeals in a consistent manner.

For the avoidance of doubt, appeals can be made by anyone who is dissatisfied about any aspect of our business including the handling or outcome of a complaint.

Please note that an appeal made under this Appeals Policy can be defined as a formal request made by any of the above to undertake an investigation into decisions (including assessment, procedures, imposition of a sanction or action, malpractice or maladministration investigation, complaint) and arrive at an Appeal Outcome (see below) and, if applicable, Independent Review of an Appeal Outcome (see below).  Please note that both academic and non-academic matters can be reviewed.

Making an Appeal

Please note that if you are looking to submit an appeal to the Register:

• you are already in receipt of a decision or finding made by the Professional Conduct Review Committee (on behalf of the Register), as an individual Practitioner, or as a service or client of that Practitioner;
• this must be done within one (1) calendar month of the date of the event that the appeal relates to;
• we will look to acknowledge your appeal as soon as is reasonably possible and in any event within five (5) working days from receipt of the same;
• we will keep you informed at each stage of the appeal process;
• the duration of the appeal process is dependent on the nature and complexity of the appeal and the availability of associated documentation. Having said this, an appeal will normally be decided within three (3) calendar months from the date of receipt of the same;
• we do not charge any fees to cover the administrative and member costs involved in dealing with appeals.

Please note that our Data Protection Policy can be found at athenaherd.org.

Stage 1 – Initial Assessment Details:

On receipt of a request for appeal, including any supporting information and/or documentation, the Chair of the Advisory Board shall undertake an Initial assessment of the appeal to ensure that the Appeal Form is complete and ascertain if that raised can be resolved before it goes to review.  Please note that in the event further information/documentation is required, this will be requested at this stage along with contacting, where necessary, practitioners or other parties.

If it is deemed appropriate to continue the Chair of the Advisory Board will assign a responsibility to an individual not involved in the original decision for impartial assessment.

Following the assessment, that assigned individual will write to you with details of its impartial decision to either:

• amend our original decision in light of the new rationale/evidence being put forward and which has now been reviewed; or
• confirm we stand by our original decision and the rationale for this decision.

We will request that you confirm, within fifteen (15) days of receipt of the initial assessment decision, whether you now accept this decision or if you wish to proceed to our Independent Quality Assurance Review process which will be carried out by an independent reviewer.

Stage 2 – Independent Review of the Appeal

If you wish to proceed to the next stage of our appeal process and ask for an Independent Review, please send your request to the Char of the Advisory Board who will arrange for an independent review to be carried out. The purpose of the review is not to revisit any decision but to investigate any failings in the complaints and appeals process. All previous stages of the complaints and appeals process must be concluded before an application for Independent Review is made.

The Register will appoint someone who is not a member of the Register’s staff or team to conduct the independent review. Anyone so assigned shall have relevant competence to make a decision in relation to the appeal and will not have any personal interest in the decision being appealed.

This Review process may involve a:

• discussion with the individual service-user, practitioner and the Register;
• request for further information from the individual service-user, practitioner or the Register;
• Centre visit by the individual undertaking the Review.

Please note that the decision of this Review will be final. A representative of the Advisory Board will either write or send an email to inform you of the outcome of the review within thirty (30) working days of the request for a Review.  Legal representation is not permitted.

In the unlikely event that the Reviewer is unable to reach a decision, the Appeal will be raised at the next Advisory Board meeting who meet at least quarterly.

What if I am not happy with the reply?

If you are still unhappy with the outcome you are entitled to raise the matter with the Professional Standards Authority. If you are unhappy with the outcome in relation to those individual practitioners on the Register, this can be recorded with the Professional Standards Authority through their “Share your Experience” process.

Successful complaints and/or issues brought to our attention by the Professional Standards Authority.

In situations where your appeal has been successful, the Advisory Board shall give due consideration to how we can improve our service in the future. This may include reviewing our procedures or arranging for extra staff training.

Similarly, in respect of registrants on the Register and/or their service users, where an appeal has been successful appropriate actions or sanctions will be set in place, or those previously applied revisited appropriately. Any revisions will be reflected where appropriate in any information posted online under Professional Conduct Notices.

We recognise that Practitioners on the Register may also be members of other accredited registers. Where this is the case, we may become aware of issues being reported under those registers against those Practitioners, in such cases their position on the Register will be reviewed. Any such decision made may be contested under this policy.

Where an appeal has been successful, or where an investigation following notification from the regulators indicates a failure on the part of the Register’s processes we will take appropriate action such as:

• identifying any other individual that has been affected by such failure;
• correcting or mitigating, as far as is reasonably possible, the effect of such failure;
• reviewing and amending processes where appropriate to reduce the likelihood that such failure will occur again.

Please note that all Register members will cooperate with any follow-up investigations required by the regulators and agree any remedial action with them.

Contact us

If you have any queries about the content of this Appeals Policy, please contact our Internal Quality Assurance function or email [email protected].

Appeals Policy Review Process

The Advisory Board will review this Appeals Policy and any associated procedures annually as part of our ongoing self-assessment arrangements.