We are told by many of our members that they struggle to gain employment whilst under a Fitness to Practice investigation especially if they have an Interim Conditions of Practice Order in place. This is incredibly frustrating as many of these nurses and midwives will receive a no case to answer at the end of their investigation. However, because they are unable to maintain employment they are then in the catch-22 scenario of being made unfit to practice because of the process itself!
We are trying to do work to rectify this which includes ongoing discussions with the NMC as well as work with the Chief Nursing Officer for England in running a pilot which is similar to the return to practice course currently in place. We wrote this post about it.
One thing you can do whilst waiting for your investigation to conclude is to actively collate information about the jobs you have tried to get and been refused due to FtP and/or COP. This can then be used as evidence when asking for an Interim Order Review to assist the NMC in ensuring they are being reasonable and proportionate in their sanctions.
Employment application template
This is a template provided to you as a suggestion of how to collate information about your attempts to gain employment whilst under an Interim Order.
In order to apply for an early review the NMC will require to see any additional evidence that justifies an early review.
Evidence such as this may prove useful as will testimonials and references.
If you are struggling to gain employment whilst under FtP, saying you can’t get a job will not be enough – you will have to evidence it.
If an employer has offered you the post at interview but then withdrawn this offer due to exploring the COP – ask for a written response as to their reasoning.
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Date job applied for: Employer name: Job/Role:
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Nature of unsuccessful application, e.g.
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Did the employer state the unsuccessful application was due to the COP being in place? (If you have this in writing please enclose.) |
This is all very well now but for those of us who’ve already been rejected due to conditions and ftp we haven’t or didn’t save those jobs/ interviews and have been left excepting lower grade jobs instead as many of the employers weren’t in a position to support during lock down-pandemic. So it’s hard to evidence reality.