Discipline

Health Professions Discipline Tribunal

Under the Health Professions and Occupations Act (HPOA), health profession regulatory colleges in BC continue to receive and investigate complaints against health professionals.

However, the HPOA established the Health Professions and Occupations Regulatory Oversight Office (HPOROO), an independent office separate from the six BC health profession regulatory colleges, including CHCPBC. Within the HPOROO, the Health Professions Discipline Tribunal oversees the discipline process for regulated health professions in BC. The HPOROO Director of Discipline leads the Discipline Tribunal.

The Discipline Tribunal’s role is to:

• Decide on requests from health profession regulatory colleges to issue citations
• Approve agreements to resolve certain cases without a hearing
• Hold disciplinary hearings when necessary
• Hear appeals from disciplinary hearings
• Decide what information should be made public after each case is finished

Discipline hearings

Discipline panels

The Discipline Tribunal recruits professional and public members to fill part-time roles on discipline panels, which participate in discipline hearings.

Independent discipline panels appointed by the Director of Discipline consist of a professional of the same profession subject to discipline and a member of the public. When choosing panel members, the Director of Discipline considers if the members have the expertise needed to conduct the discipline hearing in a manner that mitigates any potential trauma that may arise from an adversarial process.

What happens in a discipline hearing?

If a matter proceeds to a discipline hearing, evidence is presented to a Discipline Tribunal hearing panel and both the College and respondent have an opportunity to be heard.

During the discipline hearing:

• The College presents the results of its investigation
• The licensee, who is entitled to be represented by a lawyer, presents their response to the charges in the citation and may bring evidence to support their account of events
• Witnesses may be called, including experts

Discipline hearings are open to the public, except in limited circumstances where privacy, safety, or trauma‑informed considerations require a closed session.

What happens after a discipline hearing?

Following the discipline hearing:

The Discipline Tribunal must decide whether a respondent lacks competence and/or has committed an act of misconduct.

• If the Discipline Tribunal decides that a respondent does not lack competence or has not committed an act of misconduct, the discipline panel must make an order to dismiss the citation and any order made during the course of an investigation ceases to apply on the date of the decision.
• If the Discipline Tribunal decides that a respondent lacks competence or has committed an act of misconduct, the discipline panel must either:
  • Make an order to dismiss the citation if they do not think a disciplinary order is appropriate; or
  • Make one or more disciplinary orders and possibly an order for hearing costs.

Disciplinary orders issued by the Discipline Tribunal may include:

• Education or remediation requirements
• Limits or conditions on practice
• Suspension
• Cancellation of the licence or
• Other protective measures.

The Discipline Tribunal also decides what information should be made public after each case is finished. See Published Orders & Citation Requests.

It is the regulatory college who is responsible for enforcement of disciplinary orders.

For more information, see Health Professions Discipline Tribunal on the HPOROO website.

Questions about the Discipline Tribunal or the actions it may take can be sent to the Tribunal: tribunal@hporoo.ca.