Evidence submitted by the Health Professions
Council (WP 76)
The Health Professions Council welcomes the
opportunity to give evidence to the Health Select Committee's
workforce planning enquiry. The following is designed to give
a brief overview to the role of HPC, and more detail about some
particular areas of HPC's responsibility which could be of interest
to workforce planning.
ABOUT THE
HPC
1. The Health Professions Council is a UK
wide healthcare regulator, established by the Health Professions
Order 2001 ("the Order"). It registers around 170,000
members of the following thirteen professions:
— Chiropodists and podiatrists;
— Occupational therapists;
— Operating department practitioners;
— Prosthetists and orthotists;
— Speech and language therapists.
2. The HPC was established to protect the
public, in the words of the Order, "to safeguard the health
and well-being of persons using or needing the services of registrants".
In order to do this, it runs four key functions:
— setting standards for health professionals,
including standards for professional skills and knowledge, education
and training, continuing professional development, conduct, character
and health;
— keeping a register of health professionals
that meet those standards;
— approving programmes which lead to
entry to the Register; and
— taking action when health professionals
do not meet those standards.
PROTECTING PROFESSIONAL
TITLES
3. The Health Professions Order protects
common professional titles, meaning that only HPC registered health
professionals can use protected titles such as "physiotherapist"
or "chiropodist". Anyone who uses a protected title
who is not on the HPC Register can be prosecuted and fined up
to £5,000. HPC undertook research with the public in 2002
to establish the most commonly recognised and commonly used titles
for each profession, and can protect further titles if necessary.
4. Regulation of title not function
establishes a flexible system of regulation, which does not stifle
innovation and development, and allows employers and providers
to devise flexible ways of delivering healthcare. Registered health
professionals can develop their scope of practice as they progress
in their career: they can specialise, or move into an advanced
role, provided that they are able to do so safely. All health
professionals are required to meet the HPC's standards of conduct,
performance and ethics, which require them to work within their
scope of practice, and any health professional who does not may
have action taken against them which could result in them being
struck off the Register.
NEW PROFESSIONS
5. Under the Health Professions Order, the
HPC can also make recommendations to the Secretary of State regarding
other professions which it believes should be regulated. In October
2004, operating department practitioners became the first new
group to join the HPC Register.
6. New professions (aspirant groups) can
make an application to the Council to be considered for regulation.
The Council has established ten criteria against which it assesses
applications, which include the requirements that the group must
cover a discrete area of activity displaying some homogeneity
and operate a voluntary register.
7. Thus far, the Council has considered
applications by nine groups, including applied psychologists,
clinical technologists, and clinical physiologists. In addition,
the Council has been approached by over 40 groups who have expressed
an interest in being HPC regulated.
APPROVING PROGRAMMES
8. The HPC approves programmes (courses)
which lead to registration. This is done by assessing programmes
against the HPC's Standards of Education and Training, and the
Standards of Proficiency. The assessment is carried out by "Visitors"
who are registered health professionals. They visit education
providers to meet programme staff, placement providers, students
and others, in order to write their report on how far the programme
meets the standards. If approved, the programme is added to the
HPC approved course list, which is published online. Students
who successfully complete the course can then apply for registration
with HPC.
9. In planning workforce development which
requires the establishment of new programmes, it may be useful
to know that a six month lead time is necessary to schedule a
visit with our Education department.
THE REGISTRATION
PROCESS
10. Having completed an approved programme,
students then need to register with HPC before they can practise
using the protected title for their profession. Most UK graduates,
numbering around 8,000, submit their applications during the peak
summer period. The HPC therefore recommends to students that they
allow at least two weeks between submitting their application,
and the time when they need to be registered in order to practise.
11. When applying for registration, applicants
need to send information to HPC which includes:
— A health reference signed by their
GP;
— A character reference signed by someone
"of professional standing in the community"; and
— A copy of their passport and birth
certificate.
12. HPC runs a series of student talks,
delivered to final year students, to explain the registration
process, how regulation works, and the standards expected of registrants.
HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
FROM OUTSIDE
THE UK
13. Health professionals who trained outside
the UK must apply to HPC to be registered. HPC uses registration
assessors, who are trained health professionals, to look at each
application individually to see whether it meets the Standards
of Proficiency. Each applicant provides information about their
education, training and experience to be assessed. If the registration
assessors consider that the applicant meets the standards, they
will recommend that they should be registered. The time to process
an application via the international registration process is fifteen
weeks at the time of writing.
STATISTICS
14. The HPC registration database holds
information about all 170,000 health professionals currently and
previously registered, including their sex, date of birth, work
address, and other information. HPC can provide this information
(anonymised to protect registrants' identity) which may be of
use to workforce planning in, for example ascertaining the numbers
of health professionals who are likely to retire over a given
period, or the pattern of distribution across different age brackets,
broken down by gender. As an example of the kinds of information
HPC can provide, attached to this response is a breakdown of the
numbers of registered physiotherapists, by year of birth and gender.
THE FOSTER
REVIEW
15. At the time of writing this response
to the committee, the Foster review of non-medical regulation
has not yet been published. This review, which was run concurrently
with the Donaldson review of medical regulation, is expected to
make recommendations about the future of regulation which will
have an impact on HPC and how it is run. In particular, the remit
of the review included topics such as revalidation, the regulation
of assistant practitioners and advanced practitioners, and the
fitness to practise process. The HPC is looking forward to the
publication of the results of the Foster review, and will work
with the government to implement the proposals.
WORKFORCE PLANNING
AND THE
HPC
16. Our role as a regulator means that HPC
does not have direct input into workforce planning issues, other
than to provide information for other organisations who are looking
into health needs. However, moving forward it could be useful
for HPC to be involved at an earlier stage in this process. HPC
could provide information (as above) to inform planning, and could
if alerted make its own preparations for any proposed changes
in the numbers of health professionals to be registered. Depending
on the outcome of the Foster review, planned developments in health
professions' roles could also inform the standards that we set,
or could be considered in the light of our new professions process.
Health Professions Council
April 2006
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