Periodic Review - Health and Care Professions Council 2025/26

We have published our 2025/26 performance review for the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). For this period it is one of our longer, more detailed periodic reviews. The report covers the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.

Key statistics

• The HCPC regulates 15 health and care professions in the United Kingdom
• There were 367,535 professionals on its register (as at 31 March 2026)

Key findings and areas for improvement

Standard 3 on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)

The HCPC continues to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to EDI and performed well against this Standard, building on its positive performance from last year. This year, the HCPC published EDI quality indicators to help education providers fully understand requirements set out in the HCPC’s standards of education and training, and to more explicitly link them to EDI. We considered that the publication of the EDI quality indicators provided strong evidence of progressive improvement and considered they were a positive development. 

The HCPC continued to analyse its fitness to practise data to identify potential unfairness and to assess whether its processes lead to unfair outcomes; it has committed to carry out further analysis.

Fitness to Practise

The HCPC has met three out of five Fitness to Practise (FTP) Standards this year. 

We audited a sample of closed HCPC cases to evaluate timeliness, investigation quality, decision-making, risk management and support for parties. Our findings were mixed. 

The HCPC did not meet Standard 15 again this year, because it is still taking too long to process FTP cases and its open caseload has increased. During our audit of the HCPC’s FTP process, we identified avoidable and/or unexplained significant delays in approximately 40% of cases. Stakeholders also continue to tell us about delays in the HCPC’s FTP process and the impact these can have on the wellbeing of registrants. In accordance with our escalation policy, we have provided an update letter regarding our concerns to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and Health and Social Care Committee Chair.

Our audit highlighted that improvements are needed in the quality and timeliness of some of the HCPC’s risk assessments, and that adherence to the HCPC’s internal risk assessment guidance is not consistent across its caseload. However, our audit also provided assurance that, in most cases, the HCPC is identifying and managing risks appropriately, such as considering, or applying for, an interim order and progressing high-risk cases promptly. The data shows that the HCPC generally acts promptly when it identifies risk in cases. Whilst we have identified some areas for improvement, on balance we concluded that Standard 17 was met. Next year, we will monitor for evidence of improvements in the areas highlighted in our audit.

The HCPC did not meet Standard 18 this year. While the HCPC has taken steps to improve the support it provides to parties involved in the FTP process, our audit found that these improvements have not yet resulted in consistently reliable performance across its caseload. Stakeholders also described the HCPC’s communication as inconsistent, insufficiently responsive, and not adapted to the needs of individuals experiencing distress. Poor communication, such as failing to provide updates on case progression, can compound the stress and harm caused by the process. The HCPC has committed to various actions to improve performance against this Standard and we will monitor the impact of these changes in future performance reviews.