Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the policies are of healthcare regulations on the publication of (a) fitness to practice decisions, (b) sanctions and (c) warnings when a person changes their gender and requests their former public record is suppressed.

Professional Regulators have a statutory duty to ensure patient safety and public protection and one way in which they achieve this is by publishing relevant information relating to a professional’s fitness to practise. A healthcare professional’s fitness to practise record is tied to their unique registration record held by the relevant regulatory body, which will remain associated with the individual throughout their career. This is regardless of whether a professional changes their name and or gender. As independent bodies, the policies relating to publication of such information is a matter for each professional regulator, within the scope of their governing legislation and in line with existing data legislation and other law.