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A Litany of fundamental flaws UPDATED VERSION.pdf (338.11 kB)

The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (regulated activities) regulations 2014: a litany of fundamental flaws?

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 04:53 authored by Ruth StirtonRuth Stirton
In this paper, I argue that the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 are fatally flawed. This is a criticism more often levied at knee-jerk responses to policy crises, precisely because they are created without the benefit of time and thought. Yet, far from being a knee-jerk response, these Regulations were the product of considerable thought and deliberation following a sensitively executed public inquiry. Notwithstanding the apparent rigour of the process which produced them, I argue that the 2014 Regulations will fail, because they rely too heavily on the rhetoric of criminal law while failing to take into account the competing norms for compliance and the impact of NHS budget constraints. Further, they push the CQC towards a heavy-handed deterrence approach to enforcement, which will increase hostility between regulatees and the inspectorate, and ultimately reduce the scope for developing the transparency about failures which is sorely needed in the NHS. This paper challenges the contemporary wisdom that it is primarily knee-jerk regulatory responses that suffer from fatal flaws of this nature.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Modern Law Review

ISSN

0026-7961

Publisher

Wiley

Issue

2

Volume

80

Page range

299-324

Department affiliated with

  • Law Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2017-01-24

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2017-09-04

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-01-24

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