No more excuses - tackling inequalities in health and care professional regulation
This is the first chapter in our report - Safer care for all: solutions from professional regulation and beyond. we looked at the impact of inequalities on patients, service users and registrants, and on public confidence more widely. We also took a closer look at what professional regulation (and beyond) could do to tackle inequalities in health and care.
We have recently held two events:
On 14 December 2023 more than 90 participants joined us online to explore whether health and care professionals in the UK should have an explicit responsibility in supporting action to address these disparities as they do in other countries. And, if so, whether regulators need to reinforce such a role through their training, standards and guidance.
We then started the new year off with a joint online seminar on tackling barriers to complaints with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). The event followed on the heels of an earlier in-person event with patient and service-user organisations held in Edinburgh in September 2023.
The event brought together over 100 stakeholders from across the health and social care sector to discuss and explore the barriers that currently existing and can prevent patients and service uses from complaining. Along with our PHSO colleagues we wanted to share examples of innovative actions to widen and improve access to complaints services and to encourage and promote further joint work to tackle barriers to complaining. The event gave us much food for thought and we will look to continue this work in 2024/25.
You can find out more about both of these events here.