If you have submitted a complaint as advised, the Board will send you an acknowledgement.
The Board will then review your complaint carefully to see if there are issues that it needs to investigate. You may be contacted by the Secretary of the Board for further information. If the Board is not the right organisation to investigate the complaint, we will tell you and if possible, advise you where to take it.
If the Board decides to investigate, a copy of your complaint will be sent to the health professional and a reply will be sought. Once the reply has been received, you will have a chance to respond to it.
Once all the necessary information has been collected, the Board will decide whether the matter is serious enough to be referred to its Fitness to Practice procedure.
You should be aware that procedures for investigating Fitness to Practice can be long drawn and may involve persons from outside Gibraltar.
If the Fitness to Practice procedure substantiates concerns about health professionals, the Board has powers to:
- Issue a caution
- Suspend them from the register, so that they cannot practise their profession during the suspension period
- Prescribe undertakings, for example, that they agree to re-train
- Place conditions, for example that the they are only allowed to practise under supervision, or that they are restricted to certain areas of practice
- Remove their names from the register, so that they cannot practise at all.