Government announcement on regulation of health and social care professionals

At UKPHR we are pleased to learn that the Department will not proceed with a Section 60 Order to introduce statutory regulation of public health specialists by HCPC.

Please read below a written statement from the Department.

Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals
The Government remains committed to reform of the regulation of health and (in England) social care professionals. The Government is grateful for the work of the Law Commissions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in making recommendations and has been considering how best to take these forward.

Our priorities for reform in this area are better regulation, autonomy and cost-effectiveness while maintaining and improving our focus on public protection. We intend to consult on how these priorities can be taken forward, taking account of the Law Commissions’ work on simplification and consistency and building on the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care’s paper Rethinking regulation published in August 2015. We will present proposals that give the regulators the flexibility they need to respond to new challenges in the future without the need for further primary legislation.

We recognise the need for some immediate reform in this area. Subject to Parliamentary time we plan to take forward reforms to regulators’ rule-making process and the way that the larger regulators deal with concerns about their registrants. This will improve accountability and make the system more efficient and effective.

This Government remains committed to the principle of proportionate regulation of healthcare professionals. Having considered the arrangements already in place to ensure that Public Health Specialists from backgrounds other than dentistry or medicine are appropriately registered and qualified, the Government does not consider that extending statutory regulation to this professional group is necessary. To this end, it will not be taking forward secondary legislation in this regard.