HCPC fitness to practise annual report 2023-24

The overwhelming majority of professionals on our Register practise safely and effectively. Fewer than 1% of the professionals we regulate had a concern raised about them in 2023–24, in line with previous years. We will always listen to anyone who feels they have not had safe or effective care, or who has concerns about someone on our Register, and we encourage anyone with a concern to come forward.

In 2023–24 we have seen an increase in the number of new FTP concerns we receive, which is a trend being experienced by other professional regulators across the healthcare system. There are no clear themes behind the increase for the HCPC, however it may show that the public are becoming more aware of and engaged with whistleblowing procedures. We identified the trend early on and have taken action to adapt our ways of working to respond.

Our FTP improvement programme continues to make progress. As a result of this work, we are pleased to have gained standard 18 in our review by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) this year. We are conscious that there are still improvements to be made to ensure we gain the two remaining standards.

In April 2023, we launched a new wellbeing support service with our partner, CiC Wellbeing. This service provides wellbeing support and practical advice for registrants involved in the FTP process. In the year of this report, the service received 222 contacts from registrants, which is around 11% of those with an open FTP case. We are pleased that registrants are making use of this new resource.

For the second year running, we are able to include equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) data analysis in our FTP annual report. In April 2024, the HCPC held EDI data on 98% of its registrants, over 40% points more than the previous year. We are delighted with the progress this demonstrates in terms of our EDI data collection.

Continuing to improve how we investigate FTP concerns is a core element of our Corporate strategy 2021–26 and will continue to be a priority for the HCPC in 2024–25.

Laura Coffey
Executive Director of Fitness to Practise and Tribunal Services