Introducing UKPHR’s new revalidation scheme

By David Kidney, UKPHR Executive Director

In February 2017 UKPHR’s Board made its decision to introduce revalidation for registrants in place of UKPHR’s existing 5-yearly re-registration process.

The changeover from re-registration to revalidation will not be overnight. As readers can imagine, it has taken a long and painstaking progression for us to get to this point.

We have been assisted greatly by a dedicated task & finish group comprising a range of professional stakeholders. We were also aided by the many responses we received to our consultation at an earlier stage.

We intend to be equally careful, transparent and accountable in how we next introduce revalidation.

All of us involved in the development of UKPHR’s revalidation process have been encouraged by the widespread support we have received from the public health system and those who work in it. We have been reassured that our existing re-registration requirements have meant that we were not starting from scratch in designing the revalidation scheme.

In March 2017 we have published our revalidation scheme on our website and we have contacted registrants, partners and stakeholders and many other interested parties to alert them to its publication. In April we plan to publish guidance in support of the revalidation policy in order to start to fill in the detail of how exactly UKPHR will operate revalidation.

We have created a discrete area on our website for these and other publications relating to the introduction of revalidation. Do please visit our website now and from time to time going forward in order to keep abreast of our developments in relation to revalidation.

From the time of the Board’s decision in February 2017 until September 2017, there will be more activity by UKPHR to raise awareness of the existence of our revalidation scheme, who will be affected by it and what steps registrants and others will need to take to assist with the future revalidation of registrants.

From September 2017 until March 2018 we shall be asking registrants who are due to apply to us for their normal 5-yearly re-registration to volunteer to try out our revalidation requirements. Naturally their participation will not affect the decisions we make about their re-registration but we hope to gain important experience of our new revalidation process and iron out any wrinkles that we discover as a result of piloting the revalidation scheme.

Remember, please, that revalidation is intended to be a process, not merely a test at a single point in time, by which UKPHR and the public and others can be assured that UKPHR’s registrants maintain and build on the competence that was demonstrated in order to achieve registration.

It fits with our duty to protect the public from harm caused by unacceptable standards of public health practice. It also fits with our commitment to continuous improvement which we apply with regard to our own performance and to the performance of our registrants.

Revalidation will give the public and others confidence that UKPHR and its registrants are committed to maintaining the competence of the core public health workforce, enhancing quality of service and improving public health practice.

I hope that readers find this information helpful. You are welcome to contact me if you have any comments or questions about UKPHR’s revalidation plans at d.kidney@ukphr.org