Source: The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) published on this website Wednesday 8 October 2025
The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) published its first report focused on its ‘Section 29’ appeals. Appealing fitness to practise decisions: the year in focus covers the period from April 2024 to March 2025, and presents key data, comparative statistics, case studies, and thematic insights aimed at improving the robustness, fairness, and safety of fitness to practise decision-making by regulators’ panels.
The report explains more about the PSA’s role under Section 29 of the NHS Reform and Health Care Professions Act, including why and how it decides to appeal a regulator’s panel decision and, when it decides not to, how learning points are shared to help regulators improve their processes.
The report shows that of the 2,230 fitness practise decisions received in 2024/25, the PSA reviewed 1,216 and went on to appeal 21 of these. It also identifies themes emerging from its review of panel decisions such as a steady rise in cases relating to sexual misconduct/harassment over the last five years, from 3.9% in 2021/22 to 10.2% in 2024/25.
Rachael Culverhouse-Wilson, the PSA’s Head of Legal, said:
“This is the first time we have collated our Section 29 insights and published it in a report. We anticipate that regulators will find it useful for training their fitness to practise teams and panellists. We also anticipate that it helps to raise awareness of our Section 29 role, what it involves and how it contributes to public protection. In future, we want to make more of our convening role including sharing good practice and this report is one way to achieve this.
“Next year we will be publishing our 2026-29 Strategic Plan as well as revising the Standards we use to assess regulators and Accredited Registers. We want to use learning from our Section 29 work to inform our revised fitness to practise standards.
“We welcome feedback to help shape future reports and enhance regulatory practice.”
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Appealing fitness to practise decisions - the year in focus 2024/25
