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The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: A Litany of Fundamental Flaws?
Author(s) -
Stirton Ruth
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the modern law review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.37
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1468-2230
pISSN - 0026-7961
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2230.12255
Subject(s) - deliberation , rigour , transparency (behavior) , enforcement , compliance (psychology) , political science , law and economics , rhetoric , health care , deterrence (psychology) , scope (computer science) , social care , law , public relations , business , sociology , medicine , psychology , social psychology , politics , nursing , linguistics , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , computer science , programming language
This article argues that the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 are fatally flawed notwithstanding the apparent rigour of the process which produced them. These Regulations were the product of considerable deliberation following a sensitively executed public inquiry yet, it is argued, 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 article challenges the contemporary wisdom that it is primarily knee‐jerk regulatory responses that suffer from fatal flaws of this nature.