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PSA welcomes spotlight on professional registration in alarming report into children’s hearing services
12 Nov 2025
Following the publication of the Kingdon review of children's hearing services in England, the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) would like to extend its sympathies to the children who have been left with hearing loss, due to missed or late identification of symptoms, and their families. The report presents concerning evidence about failings that have caused avoidable harm to hundreds of children.
We welcome the focus in the recommendations on the importance of professional registration, including that all audiologists should be registered on a single, non-statutory professional register. People working as audiologists are not currently required by law to be registered with a statutory body.
The PSA provides independent assurance of the Academy of Healthcare Science, which registers audiologists, through its Accredited Registers programme. We actively encourage the NHS and other employers to use Accredited Registers. The report’s recommendation to include professional registration as a condition of employment within the NHS would strengthen this assurance for audiology. We therefore urge the Department of Health and Social Care to adopt this recommendation.
We note the similarities between the findings of this report and those of the 2023 Independent Review of Audiology Services in Scotland. Any regulatory solutions embraced by Government should be considered on a UK-wide basis to bring as much consistency as possible to the quality of services across the countries. We also recommend that they form part of a more strategic and consistent approach to how regulation is used to support improvements in quality and safety across healthcare provision.
Alan Clamp, PSA Chief Executive said:
“This report will bring much-needed attention to a service that appears to have been neglected from both a policy, and a quality and safety perspective – and children have suffered as a consequence. We will now take time to read the report and its recommendations in detail. In the meantime, to promote patient safety, we urge the UK Government to continue to strengthen use of Accredited Registers across the NHS for roles, such as audiology, that are not regulated by law.”
ENDS
Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care
Contact: media@professionalstandards.org.uk
Notes to the editor
- The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) is the UK’s oversight body for the regulation of people working in health and social care. Our statutory remit, independence and expertise underpin our commitment to the safety of patients and service-users, and to the protection of the public. There are 10 organisations that regulate health professionals in the UK and social workers in England by law. We audit their performance and review their decisions on practitioners’ fitness to practise. We also accredit and set standards for organisations holding registers of health and care practitioners not regulated by law. We collaborate with all of these organisations to improve standards. We share good practice, knowledge and our right-touch regulation expertise.
- The PSA has legal powers to accredit non-statutory registers if they can meet its standards and it is in the public interest to accredit the register. These standards assess that the register operates effectively to protect the public.
- There are 28 Accredited Registers. Accredited Registers can only become accredited after a full assessment against all the standards and can only remain accredited if they pass, as a minimum, annual assessments. There are currently approximately 130,000 practitioners on an Accredited Register, working across more than 60 different roles.
- The Academy of Healthcare Science, which registers audiologists, is a member of PSA’s Accredited Registers programme. The PSA oversees the work of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) which is the statutory regulator for Hearing Aid Dispensers and Clinical Scientists, some of whom will be registered under the Audiology modality.
- The PSA also conducts and promotes research on regulation. We monitor policy developments in the UK and internationally, providing guidance to governments and stakeholders. Through our UK and international consultancy, we share our expertise and broaden our regulatory insights.
- Our values are – integrity, transparency, respect, fairness and teamwork – and we strive to ensure that they are at the core of our work.