Frequently asked questions

Professional regulation is necessary to protect the public from individuals whose practice is below the required standard (incompetent) or unethical.

The main purpose of the regulation of professionals, including public health professionals, is to “protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public”. This is achieved by ensuring professionals are competent, sufficiently experienced and adhere to agreed standards of ethical practice.

Protecting and improving health and well being of our communities and ensuring fair access to good quality healthcare services are objectives that lie at the heart of Public Health. The purpose of UKPHR is to provide public assurance for the provision of a competent workforce that contributes to a high quality public health service to deliver those objectives.

In order to create and maintain a high quality public health service we need a public health workforce that is trained, self confident and professionally skilled. We seek to ensure that the skills they have are consistent across the entire regulated public health workforce.

To achieve this, UKPHR is committed to:

• supporting employers in all sectors; health, local government, the voluntary and private sectors to recruit and retain an appropriately regulated multi-disciplinary and multi-professional workforce who are able to address the complex demands and challenges of the public health needs in the 21st Century
• ensuring that the skills and competencies of all of the regulated public health workforce are fit for purpose and appropriately regulated across all four nations of the UK
• promoting and ensuring co-operation between regulatory and standard setting bodies to assure employers, commissioners of services and the public that the quality of public health practice is consistent across the breadth of the regulated public health workforce
• ensuring that standards and training requirements are kept under regular review and updated as necessary
• investigating complaints about the conduct or performance of any registrant, ensuring that action is taken against their continuing registration in the event of serious shortcomings being identified
• ensuring robust procedures are in place for the implementation of professional revalidation, which are consistent among the relevant regulators

The difference between a regulator and professional body varies for different professions. These days it is usual to separate the regulatory function, from the functions of a membership body that represents a profession. So, while it used to be common for professional bodies to have a regulatory function that is no longer the case. In public health, the two are separate and the two are separate with UKPHR being the most obvious regulator and the UK Faculty of Public Health the main professional body. Our first obligation is public protection, the Faculty’s is professional representation. ?it is necessary to be registered with the regulator but not necessarily to be a member of a professional body, although the latter is considered to be good practice, since professional bodies often offer access to valuable services like CPD and member networks.

In public health, for specialists, there are three regulators, the General Medical Council (GMC) who regulate public health doctors, the General Dental Council (GDC) who regulate public health dentists and UKPHR who regulate the multidisciplinary workforce. For public health practitioners, there are several relevant regulators and registers beside UKPHR including, for example, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). It concerns us that some practitioners are not regulated.

While there may be a number of regulators for public health, what is more important is that the regulators work closely together, with the professional bodies, to ensure that there is consistency in both standards and practice across all professionals involved in delivering public health services in order to safeguard the public.

Many features of regulation are the same for a voluntary register and a statutory regulator:

• Maintaining a register of practitioners
• Setting educational standards and supporting an independent accreditation system
• Requiring ongoing professional competence among its registrants through a programme of continuing professional development
• Publishing and enforcing codes of conduct, ethics and practice
• Having in place a complaints mechanism for members of the public to employ
• Having in place a fitness to practise procedure that is accessible to the public
• Including lay representation on the executive council

However, the most important factor for effective regulation is that whoever employs the professionals or commissions their services takes the requirement to be regulated seriously and that they will only look to employ professionals who have demonstrated they have achieved the level of competency required to be on a register.

The difference for statutory regulation is that the disciplinary procedures and sanctions of the regulator are underpinned by law. This means that if a professional is removed from the register it is illegal for them to continue to practise. A professional removed from a voluntary register would not appear on the register on enquiry and they may not practise where the employer requires its professional staff to be independently regulated.

In recent years the public health workforce has been identified within three groupings:

• Wider workforce: people who have a role in health improvement, protecting health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities but who would not necessarily regard themselves as part of the public health/health and wellbeing workforce, for instance, teachers, youth workers, leisure services personnel.
• Public health practitioners: people who spend a major part or all of their time in public health practice. They are likely to work in multi-professional teams and include people that work with groups and communities as well as with individuals, for instance, Smoking Cessation Advisors. Some of this group may be involved in project delivery. At a more senior level, they will be providing management and leadership across different organisations.
• Public health specialists: this group includes consultants, director of public health and specialists who work at a strategic level and very senior level. They will have technical skills, for instance in epidemiology, statistics, environmental health or immunology and be prepared to lead public health action and to support communities to engage with health protection and improvement and with health and social care services improvement.

As UKPHR’s register was not set up as a statutory regulator, the most UKPHR can do to assure third parties of the quality and effectiveness of its register is to obtain accreditation by PSA. This is under a statutory scheme for the Accredited Registers programme (Health & Social Care Act 2012, Section 229). PSA sets standards for accreditation and by meeting these standards UKPHR has attained accreditation which is renewable annually. Accredited Register status assures external audiences that the register is fit for purpose.

UKPHR regards all specialists on our register of equal measure and therefore the two categories of specialist registration, defined and generalist, as equivalent.

Defined specialist registration responds to the need of employers for specialists with a higher level of expertise in particular areas of public health, such as health protection, health improvement or public health information, amongst others. Defined specialists work at the same very senior level as generalist specialists.

UKPHR requires that generalist and defined specialist registrants have exactly the same knowledge base.

Generalist and defined specialists  also are required to have the same skills across all the core areas of public health: surveillance and assessment of the population’s health and well-being; assessing the evidence of effectiveness of health and healthcare programmes and services; policy and strategy development and implementation; and leadership and collaborative working for health.

In addition defined registrants must demonstrate high level skills (at a higher level than generalist specialists) in specific areas of public health. In these areas, the depth of expertise required for defined specialist registration balances the breadth of generalist specialist registration. Higher level competence is assessed against a set of criteria which, in essence, require specialists to demonstrate either (or a combination of):

• Providing and being recognised for highly specialised expert advice and professional support to others, reflecting advanced theoretical and practical knowledge
• Undertaking specialised work in organisationally complex and uncertain environments, with a wide reach, requiring a high degree of independent responsibility for decision-making and partnership working.

The overall equivalence between generalist and defined specialist registrants helps to support a flexible and widely competent workforce at specialist level.

To read further on the different types of specialist registration, please click here.

There are three categories:

• Public Health Specialist
• Specialty Registrar
• Public Health Practitioner  

All registrants are required to pay an annual registration fee. We maintain a table of fees and other costs on our website. Registration fees vary according to the category. For applicants seeking to register as public health specialists by way of retrospective portfolio assessment there is additionally an pre-application and portfolio assessment fee to pay in advance.

Yes, registration is for one year at a time and has to be renewed annually. The renewal offers an opportunity to review development in the 12 months since registration/renewal. We carry out this review by way of requiring an annual declaration, signed by the registrant. Our intention is that registrants reflect on their public health practice and how they are maintaining and enhancing their competence.

Once every 5 years, registrants are required to re-register (as opposed to renew registration). This constitutes a more rigorous check that competence is being maintained and enhanced, for example by checking that CPD requirements have been met. UKPHR is gradually replacing re-registration with 5-yearly revalidation. There is no fee associated with re- registration/revalidation. 

Currently, for re-registration, we require production of a number of documents including:

• A completed application form, containing an up to date declaration;
• A recent appraisal (within the last 12 months) signed off by someone registered at specialist level with the UKPHR, GMC or GDC;
• A Personal Development Plan (PDP) also signed off by someone at specialist level with the same regulatory bodies; and
• Confirmation that your CPD has been kept up to date – this can be in the form of certificates of compliance from the Faculty of Public Health or production of your CPD log.

On successful completion of re-registration, you will be re-issued with a certificate for a further 5 years of registration with UKPHR. There is no additional fee or charge for the re-registration procedure but the annual registration fee will be payable in the usual way.

UKPHR is gradually replacing re-registration with 5-yearly revalidation. We have published the requirements for revalidation. Please click here to find out more.

UKPHR does not operate reduced registration fees for registrants who experience significant life events such as adoption or maternity leave or redundancy. UKPHR’s view of registration is that it is an assurance of competent public health practice for the purpose of public protection. There is no difference in the risk of harm, in UKPHR’s view, based on part-time or temporary work during a year of registration. Therefore those who practise in public health should be on the register.

However, to assist registrants who may temporarily be out of work or have a reduced income, UKPHR provides maximum flexibility in the payment of registration fees. We accept payment of registration fees by instalments throughout a registration year in the amounts and at the frequency which suits you. Additionally, our Registrar has discretion to adjust fees for individual registrants by reason of hardship or similar circumstance. This power ranges from totally foregoing an annual fee, to reducing the fee or accepting payment of the fee late (for example after return to work).

Should you fail to pay a registration fee (and make no arrangement for payment) your registration will lapse. UKPHR has a policy enabling the Registrar to allow a lapsed registrant back onto the register on application at a later date. The Registrar may set conditions as to payment of past registration fees and maintenance of CPD.

A registrant who retires completely from public health practice poses no risk of harm to the public and need not therefore be on UKPHR’s register.

Yes, all renewal fees from 6th April 2015 can qualify for a claim for tax relief.

You can claim the registration fee as a professional expense to set against tax payable on the employment page of a self-assessment tax return or if you don’t a complete a tax return then you can use a P87 form which is available to download here.

Alternatively you can always contact HMRC direct and quote T1644/15/2015. 

If you have a complaint about a member of UKPHR’s staff and the way staff are carrying out their duties, you have the right to make a complaint. Our complaints policy and a form for making a complaint can be found on our website.

The Registrar’s powers and duties relating to all registration processes are carried out in a quasi-judicial manner and there is no administrative complaint available for challenging the Registrar’s decisions. However, the Registrar’s decisions can be challenged by way of appeal and UKPHR’s appeals rules can be found on our website.

An individual who felt that UKPHR’s behaviour was unfair might have the right to challenge the behaviour through the law courts, for example, by way of Judicial Review. UKPHR would suggest that you seek legal advice if this is something you might wish to pursue.