In response to the UK Department of Health's consultation Promoting professionalism, reforming regulation, we set out our support for the Government's proposals to modernise the healthcare professional regulatory system.
Elaine Buckley, HCPC Chair, said ‘With changes in the delivery of health and social care and a constantly evolving workforce, it is clear that professional regulation needs to be simpler and more flexible. Steps have been taken, but more needs to be done to ensure that all regulators can continue to protect the public effectively.
When implemented, these proposals will reduce costs and lead to greater understanding of the regulators’ public protection role. With fewer regulators, it will also extend multi-professional regulation, a model we have successfully operated for a number of years.
We will continue to work with Government, stakeholders and other regulators to secure these reforms and the legislative change that is needed.’
In our response we have said:
- Legislative reform is urgently required to deal with fitness to practise cases more flexibly and proportionately, avoiding the costs of lengthy investigations.
- Reducing the number of regulators would extend our own successful model of multi-professional regulation with common standards and processes, economies of scale and equity amongst professionals.
- Regulators, working with others, can support professionalism by using data and intelligence to help prevent fitness to practise issues continuing to arise.
- Regulators should work more closely together to enable greater visibility and understanding amongst key stakeholders, including public and employers.