The Royal College of Nursing is seeking a judicial review of the vetting and safeguarding scheme launched by the last government, and often the subject of criticism here.

The RCN fears that the scheme, to be run by the Independent Safeguarding Authority, would place nurses in an impossible position, open to challenges in their treatment of children and vulnerable adults and unable to defend themselves adequately against the risk of being barred for ten years, with limited rights of appeal.

Peter Carter, the college’s General Secretary (pictured), said that there had been lengthy discussions with the last government over the scheme and the conclusion the college had reached was that it was unfair.

The move may be designed to force the new government’s hand. The coalition has already promised to scale back the scheme “to commonsense levels”, but not to abolish it. The original plan was to vet more than 11 million adults before they would be allowed contact with children. Nurses might be struck off even if they had been cleared by their own disciplinary panel, and for reasons that include lifestyles deemed to be “unstable” or the appearance of suffering “severe emotional loneliness”.