RCNI have published an article today following the NMC's council meeting this month.

They discussed the ongoing back log of cases and the inordinate time cases are taking to conclude. This is not new and has been a recurring theme for many years.

Ever heard the phrase "If what you are doing isn't working, do something else." ??!!!

There are  no consequences to the NMC for these delays but every consequence to the nurse or midwife awaiting their fate and potentially to the public if the nurse or midwife investigated is not being processed quickly.

The standards in most criminal proceedings is 6months as explained below

"Prior to 2017, the majority of interviews were conducted under arrest conditions at a police station and suspects would be released on bail often with conditions and sometimes for long periods of time. Bail imposes a legal obligation on its subject to present him or herself at a police station (or court) on a particular date and time. There was no restriction on the amount of time that suspects could be placed on police bail attached to which there were often conditions. Since 2017, the circumstances in which an individual can be placed on police bail are limited and even where applicable, there are time limits which are supervised by the Courts (see our separate blogon this issue).

Instead, most suspects are ‘released under investigation’ so what are the rules in those circumstances? There are time limits on the investigation for certain offences which are dictated by the classification of the offence. Proceedings for offences which are classified as 'summary-only’ (those triable only in a Magistrates' Court) must be commenced within six months of the date of the offence. Such offences include common assault, harassment and most driving offences. Effectively, this means the police must charge (or lay an information before a Magistrates’ Clerk) within six months of the date of the offence (section 127(1) Magistrates' Courts Act 1980).

For all other offences, there is no statutory time limit. So does this mean that the police have no time constraint on their investigations? The tentative answer to this question is ‘yes’, but where there is a delay to a prosecution and there is fault on the part of the police, which leads to prejudice then the proceedings may be subject to an application to stay for ‘abuse of process’ (see for example S (S.P.) [2006] EWCA 756). Moreover, the right to have a trial within a reasonable time is enshrined in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights ('the right to a fair trial'). This is a complicated area of law and there are competing issues of public interest."

Key words - human rights - article 6 - abuse of process - trial within reasonable time - why is this not the same with NMC process?

Read the RCNI article below and feel free to add your comments either here or on the article itself