Guidance for Applicants

Our Standards and assessment processes are designed to assure compliance and encourage improvement using our legal powers and duties and in line with our Right Touch Regulation principles and our Strategic Plan 2026-29. 

Once a register is accredited, we have legal powers  to:

• periodically reconsider accreditation, 
• set conditions and recommendations on continued accreditation, and
• suspend or withdraw accreditation.

Accreditation, subject to any conditions being issued, is granted on a time-limited basis and normally given for three years. Once accredited, we conduct periodic assessments to monitor and then reconsider accreditation. We also conduct assessment processes that are responsive to change or events. 

Every assessment year (April to March), Accredited Registers will be subject to at least one assessment. 

At the start of each assessment year, we will write to you to inform you of the assessments that we anticipate need to be undertaken and any conditions and recommendations that will be reviewed in that year. We will also let you know your deadlines for submission of documents and evidence to us. 

Assuring Compliance 

The tools we have to assure compliance are: 

• The Standards, Core Expectations and Evidence
• Periodic and responsive assessments
• Placing conditions on initial and continued accreditation
• Following continued non-compliance, suspending or withdrawing accreditation. 

Encouraging Improvement

The tools we have to encourage improvement are: 

• The Standards, Core Expectations and Evidence
• Periodic assessments
• Thematic explorations each assessment year
• Collecting and sharing examples of good practice in our periodic assessments
• Placing recommendations on initial and continued accreditation.

We published the 2026 Edition of the Standards in March 2026 following wide consultation and engagement with Accredited Registers and other stakeholders . The Standards are the ‘criteria’ we use to make decisions on accreditation as required by the law. 

Alongside the Standards, at the same time, we also published The Standards for Accredited Registers: Core Expectations and Evidence.  This guidance to the Standards sets out the typical evidence that you may provide, or we may ask for, in the assessment processes. 

Most of our assessment work is based on documents that you submit to us or from meetings between you and our staff. But we also collect some evidence using fixed assessment methods.
 

Conditions

Conditions assure compliance. 

Conditions can only be applied after accreditation is granted. 

Conditions are only applied when a Standard is not met. We normally apply a condition if a Core Expectation is not met, but you can propose alternative means to meet our Standards and we will consider the rationale for departure from the Core Expectations on a case-by-case basis to ensure that our Standards are met in full.

In the 2026/27 Assessment Year, while we are phasing introduction of the 2026 Edition of the Standards, conditions can only be applied to continuous expectations in our Standards. Continuous expectations in the Standards are presented in black in the Standards for Accredited Registers: Core Expectations and Evidence document.

From the 2027/28 Assessment Year, conditions can be applied across all Standards and Core Expectations. Conditions applied to new expectations in the Standards will normally have a deadline for the next assessment in 2028/29 unless there is a public protection risk that requires more urgent action. 

Conditions can be applied in an Annual Check, Full Renewal, Condition Review, Change Assessment and Targeted Review.

Conditions come with specific deadlines for submission of evidence to us that become active from the date of publication. We normally set the deadlines based on the potential risk that the non-compliance with the Standard poses. For higher risk matters, we will set shorter deadlines (1-3 months). For lower risk matters we will set longer deadlines (4-12 months). As much as possible, we will try to align the deadlines so that you are not making multiple submissions to us.

Recommendations

Recommendations encourage improvement. 

In the 2026/27 Assessment Year, while we are phasing introduction of the 2026 Edition of the Standards, recommendations have two purposes: 

• Recommendations will be set to improve practice and enhance the operation of an Accredited Register beyond the expectations of our Core Requirements, and
• For new expectations in the Standards, recommendations will be set to support Accredited Registers to meet new expectations at the next assessment. New expectations in the Standards are presented in pink in the Standards for Accredited Registers: Core Expectations and Evidence document. 

From the 2027/28 Assessment Year, recommendations will only be set to improve practice and enhance the operation of an Accredited Register beyond the expectations of our Core Requirements.

Recommendations can be applied in an Annual Check, Full Renewal, Condition Review, Change Assessment and Targeted Review. 

Recommendations are reviewed at the next Annual Check or Full Renewal assessment and are not reviewed outside of these periodic assessments. 

We take a risk-based approach to decision-making in the assessment processes.

All assessments are subject to at least two decision-makers (an Accreditation Officer and the Head of Accreditation). Accreditation Officers will independently make their own decisions and give recommendations in their draft reports. The Head of Accreditation will independently review all draft reports. 

Higher risk decisions are then subject to further decision-making stages, and the Head of Accreditation can add decision-making stages when necessary. Further decision-making stages are: 

• Review by Director of Regulation and Accreditation
• Review by Accreditation Panel

Accreditation Panels

Accreditation Panels are formed of at least two PSA staff who do not work in the Accreditation Team. At least one member of every Accreditation Panel must be a member of our Senior Management Team. We ask Accreditation Panel members to declare conflicts of interest that they may have for each assessment they consider.

All Accreditation Panel members are equally responsible for the decision, and all decisions are based on a consensus. 

The Accreditation Panel will:

• be asked to consider the information presented by the Accreditation team,
• ask the Accreditation team any questions, and 
• come to a consensus decision about whether the organisation has met the Standards for Accredited Registers. 

The Panel will also be asked to consider whether any Conditions or Recommendations should be issued to the register. For complex decisions, Accreditation Panels may request the assistance of a specialist and/or legal advisor at the meeting. 

The meetings will be Chaired by a member of the Accreditation Panel appointed by the Accreditation team. The role of the Chair is to: 

• chair the meeting,
• ensure the Panel has all the information needed to make a decision,
• ensure that all participants in the meeting are able to express their views and contribute fully to the discussion,
• ensure that decisions are reached on all the issues raised by the team, and
• summarise the decisions at the end of the meeting.

Accreditation Panels require five working days to consider all the documents for an assessment. Please be aware that if you submit information for an Accreditation Panel’s consideration with fewer than five working days then the Accreditation Panel may be unable to take it into consideration.  

This table summarises the decision makers for the different types of assessment and scenarios.
 

We will manage the information you provide to us in accordance with our Privacy Notice. 

Any information we receive, including personal information, may be published or disclosed in accordance with the access to information regimes (primarily the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004). 

If you want the information that you provide to be treated as confidential, please be aware that, under the FOIA, there is a statutory Code of Practice with which public authorities must comply and which deals, amongst other things, with obligations of confidence. In view of this, it would be helpful if you could explain to us why you regard the information you have provided as confidential.

If we receive a request for disclosure of the information, we will take full account of your explanation, but we cannot give an assurance that confidentiality will be maintained in all circumstances. An automatic confidentiality disclaimer generated by your IT system will not, of itself, be regarded as binding on the PSA. 

We will process your personal data in accordance with the DPA and in most circumstances this will mean that your personal data will not be disclosed to third parties.

If you have any questions or concerns about how your information is being processed please contact our Data Protection Officer at suzanne.dodds@professionalstandards.org.uk
 

If you are unhappy with a decision we have made or the level of service we have provided through the Accredited Registers programme, we will listen to you and be as flexible as we can within the necessary constraints of our Standards and legal duties.  You can contact us by email at accreditationteam@professionalstandards.org.uk. 

If we are unable to resolve the matter or you would otherwise like it to be considered by someone outside of the Accreditation Team, then you can use our organisational complaints process.  

You can also appeal decisions that affect accreditation status (see Appeals). 
 

Pre-application period

We cannot conduct our assessment processes unless there are certain functions of a register already established for us to check. We also expect your organisation to be lawfully established, for the practice of your registrants to be lawful, and for stakeholder engagement to be conducted before we announce an application. For this reason, we have a Pre-application period so that we can collect some assurances before permitting an application to progress. 

Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment

You can decide to apply only for Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment. A provisional assessment is not a final decision and is designed to support applicants to determine if it is worthwhile making a full application without committing the full application fee.

Full Application assessment

To accredit a register, we must conduct an assessment against our Standards, conduct an impact assessment and consult on the impact of a decision to accredit through a Full Application assessment. 

 

We perform our work based on an annual cycle called an Assessment Year (April to March).

We set our fees and review our operational guidance in line with the Assessment Year cycle. 

To manage our resources and ensure that assessments are completed to the necessary quality standard alongside our assessments of current Accredited Registers, each year we normally only conduct: 

• Four Eligibility and Public Interest assessments (one a quarter), and
• Two Full Application assessments.

Accreditation becomes active from the date that your final report is published. This is normally seven weeks following an Accreditation Panel’s decision. We will liaise with you about the exact timing and how best to promote the outcome of the assessment. Our Communications Team will liaise with you directly on this. We ask that you do not communicate the outcome of the assessment until we are ready to publish. 

We will create your Accredited Register Directory page on our website and make sure that our Check a Practitioner Tool includes the practitioners that you register. We may need to contact you for information and high-quality logos to complete this work. 

You will be required to sign a licence agreement for the use of our Quality Mark. Once signed, you will receive the Quality Mark and be able to put it on your website and other materials. Your registrants will also be able to use the Quality Mark on their websites or literature. 

You will also be able to join the Accredited Registers Collaborative and be able to join their Information Sharing Protocol. We will connect you with the Chair of the Accredited Registers Collaborative. 

Once accredited, you should read our Guidance for Current Accredited Registers which sets out how our assessment processes work on an ongoing basis and how fees are charged and invoiced. Each Assessment Year, we will write to you and let you know about your assessments and the fees that we will be charging.
 

We cannot conduct our assessment processes unless there are certain functions of a register already established for us to check. We also expect your organisation to be lawfully established, for the practice of your registrants to be lawful, and for stakeholder engagement to be conducted before we announce an application. For these reasons, we have a pre-application period so that we can collect some assurances before permitting an application to progress. 

The duration of the pre-application period can vary greatly depending on how ready for assessment you are. A fully established register may only be in the pre-application period for a matter of weeks. A new organisation that does not have a published online register may need to undertake work to be ready for assessment that may take months or even years depending on their resources. 

You can enter into the pre-application period by completing and submitting the Registering your Interest for Accreditation form.  This form asks you provide essential information to create a record of your interest, such as contact details, and also asks you to provide declarations and evidence to support an assessment of requirements of the Pre-application Period. 

The requirements of the pre-application period are: 

• Your organisation must be lawfully established in the UK.
• Your organisation must comply with all relevant UK laws.
• The practice of the registrants you register must comply with all relevant UK laws
• If you are applying for a Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment, you must have a published online register (even if only in pilot form) and standards for your registrants so that we can conduct our assessment processes. 
• If you are making a Full Application you must at least have a published online register, standards for your registrants, a registration process, a registrant complaint process, and a governing body that is accountable for the functions of the register.

You must be able to demonstrate that you have engaged with relevant stakeholders about the intent to apply for accreditation, which includes but is not limited to: your members, all parties in the application, any relevant Accredited Registers or regulators, employers, commissioners or contracting bodies.   

As well as reviewing your Registering your Interest Accreditation form we will conduct due diligence tests such as checking company registration, ICO registration, charity registration, and other similar checks of publicly held information. 

We will also review your website to confirm that the key requirements for the assessment are available online for scrutiny in the assessment processes. 

We will also ask to meet with all parties to the application to confirm that they are in support of the application. 

We will also ask you to provide evidence either in writing or by providing us with contact details of your stakeholders so that we can confirm that you have engaged with them about your intent to make an application. 

If any part of the requirements in the pre-application period cannot be evidenced, you will not be able to proceed to make an application. 

If all requirements of the pre-application period are met, we will allocate you a two-month application window for either Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment or a Full Application assessment. You must submit your application in this window or we will offer the opportunity to another applicant. We will offer you a further two-month application on one more occasion if you miss the window again. After that, we will ask you provide evidence that you meet the requirements of the pre-application period again and the process will restart.

If you disagree with the Head of Accreditation’s decision that you have not met the requirements of the pre-application period, you can write to the Director of Regulation and Accreditation to request a review of the decision. 

You can decide to apply only for Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment. A provisional assessment is not a final decision and is designed to support applicants to determine if it is worthwhile making a full application without committing the full application fee. 

The assessment will be conducted solely against the Eligibility and Public Interest Standard. We may consider other Standards and make recommendations for any Full Application in future, but the provisional outcome that is reached will only be against the Eligibility and Public Interest Standard.

The Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment will not start until you have:

• completed the pre-application period
• submitted all required documents
• paid the application fee in full following the requirements set out in our Fees and Payment Guidance. 

A Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment is made up of the following parts: 

• Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment form, which includes Data about your functions
• Analysis of documents or evidence you submit or we gather through desk research to support the assessment of eligibility, benefit, risk and risk mitigation 
• Provisional Impact Assessment, which requires completion of the Impact Assessment Template
• A six week Share your Experience Consultation
• Registrant Website Checks, if relevant.

A Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment normally takes four months to complete. 
 

You should refer to the Standards for Accredited Registers: Core Expectations and Evidence document to prepare your application. Please note that we will use the appendix of that document for parts of the assessment. 

If you have completed the pre-application period and we have allocated you an application window, we will send you documents that you will need to complete to make your application. These documents are: 

• A Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment application form
• A benefits template
• A practitioner risk matrix template
• An impact assessment template
• A fees and payment form.

You will also need to send us up to 20 documents providing evidence to support the benefits template and practitioner risk matrix. Please do not submit more evidence than this. We will conduct our own desk research and if we require more evidence from you will request it. If we receive more evidence than this, we will return your application and ask you to select the supporting evidence that you feel is most appropriate within the maximum cap of 20 documents. 

If you are relying on any evidence, you must submit it to us or provide us with a link that is accessible. Please do not provide a list of references that we will be unable to read ourselves. 

All documents must be sent to accreditationteam@professionalstandards.org.uk. 

You must not share any personal or sensitive information related to your registrants / members and patients or service users. If we receive any information of this kind, we will return or destroy it. 

You must complete these documents on the templates and forms provided and submit them to us during the two-month application window we give you. We may choose to delay your assessment until a later application window and offer the opportunity to another applicant if we do not receive your application, it remains incomplete by the end of the window, or you have not used the templates and forms we require. 

If you submit all the required documents, and we determine that they meet our requirements, we will let you know that you should make payment and provide you with bank details and payment instructions. 

Receipt of payment starts the assessment process. We will not start the assessment process until payment is received.
 

We will acknowledge the start of the assessment process within five working days of receipt of payment. Our finance team will send you a receipt. 

You will be allocated an Accreditation Officer who will conduct the assessment and be the main point of contact. All correspondence will be sent to and from accreditationteam@professionalstandards.org.uk. 

We will start our work by preparing to launch a six-week Share Your Experience Consultation as part of our duty to conduct an Impact Assessment. This will involve: 

• Preparing and agreeing text that explains your register and your registrants to stakeholders so that they can participate in the consultation
• Collecting stakeholder contact details from you and adding other contacts so that we can invite people to participate in the consultation
• Publishing the fact of the application and the opening of the Share Your Experience Consultation
• Agreeing how you will promote the consultation.

Responses to the Share Your Experience Consultation may be relevant to all parts of the Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment. 

Once the Share Your Experience Consultation is launched, we will start reviewing the documents you have submitted in detail and start preparing a draft report against each of the Standards and Core Expectations. 

Throughout the assessment, we may raise queries with you about the information we receive. If we raise queries, we will give you a minimum of 10 working days to respond.
 

The types of evidence that may be considered for the benefit and risk in the public interest test will include material gathered from sources including:

• Your organisation
• Stakeholders through our Share Your Experience Consultation 
• published research and data from other bodies.

The sources of evidence for preventing unproven or misleading claims will be:

• our own checks of your website and other communications
• your registrants’ websites and other communications. 

The types of evidence we review will include both qualitative and quantitative sources. It is not our role to determine whether these sources are definitive. It is also not our role to undertake or commission research on the effectiveness of health or social care activities. To make an assessment, we will therefore be drawing on external forms of research and data and will need to take account of the conclusions of the authoritative bodies whose role it is to review evidence relating to health and social care. 

For many applicants, this assessment may be straightforward. For registers of practitioners working within mainstream, conventional care such as within the NHS workforce, there are likely to be existing bodies of evidence, which have been independently reviewed. For other areas, the evidence may be less clear. 

The features of organisations we would consider as authoritative bodies for our purposes in gathering and reviewing evidence about benefits and harms include: 

• Independent, not-for-profit organisations that are free from commercial sponsorship and other conflicts of interest. An example of this would be Cochrane.
• Bodies that specialise in producing evidence-based guidance and advice for health and social care practitioners. Examples of these would be the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network, or National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
• Organisations set up to promote health and wellbeing that can demonstrate accountability. Examples of these would be the NHS, and the World Health Organisation (WHO).

These types of bodies share a commitment to consultation with stakeholders, accountability and transparency in how they achieve their aims. Their work is relevant for us to consider, as it allows us to draw on a wider range of expertise and perspectives about health and social care as relevant to your register than we would be able to gather through our own resources alone.

The Accredited Registers programme applies throughout the UK. We will consider evidence that relates to the whole of the UK unless a Register operates within a limited territory.

We will not restrict the types of evidence that we will consider, but we will categorise the evidence according to its features, to help our assessment. A description of these categories is set out in this table. These can apply to both quantitative and qualitative sources.

You will need to provide evidence of how the activities of your registrants provide benefit to the health and/or wellbeing of the public. The benefits could include the following types:

• Curative – capable of curing a particular illness or condition.
• Diagnostic – capable of diagnosing a particular illness or condition.
• Palliative – does not diagnose or cure but provides relief from symptoms of an illness or condition, including from conventional treatment.
• Preventative – helping to prevent poor health or social outcomes.
• Wellbeing – supports positive quality of life from the point of view of emotional, mental and/or physical health.

You should set out benefits in the Benefits Template.

We will use the appendix of Standards for Accredited Registers: Core Expectations and Evidence document to conduct the assessment of benefit.
 

There are risks associated with any type of health or care activity. This is as much the case for activities that require registration by law, as those which do not. Conventional medicine can have significant side effects that may cause harm as well as benefit, and decisions about treatment must weigh up the potential harms and benefits, as well as other considerations such as cost.

Although the treatments offered by practitioners on Accredited Registers will generally be considered lower risk than those which are subject to statutory regulation, there will still be risks of harm associated with them. The types of harm that we consider relevant include those arising from:
•    The activities of registrants, including treatments provided.
•    Using the services of registrants as alternatives to conventional medicine, resulting in inappropriate treatment for medical conditions.
•    Financial harm associated with making unproven claims about treatments. 

You should set out risks and mitigations in the Practitioner Risk Matrix Template.

We will use the appendix of Standards for Accredited Registers: Core Expectations and Evidence document to conduct the assessment of risk.
 

It is important that you and your registrants provide clear and accurate information about the treatments and services provided. Any claims about benefits should only be made if they can be backed up by evidence.

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) publishes the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct and Promotional Marketing (CAP Code). This is the rule book for non-broadcast advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing communications. The CAP Code provides specific guidance about some services relevant to the Accredited Registers programme, such as various complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs). We will have regard to the CAP Code where relevant but not be restricted to it, if we identify areas where we think claims are being made without evidence.

We will use the appendix of Standards for Accredited Registers: Core Expectations and Evidence document to conduct the assessment of commitment to provide accurate information about treatments and services.
 

We will rely upon information submitted to us in the pre-application period and through the Share Your Experience Consultation. If it comes to light that your register or your registrants may be undertaking unlawful activity, we will give you 10 working days to provide your representations to us in writing before making a decision about whether the application should continue. We may refer the matter to an Accreditation Panel for a decision. 

We may be required to inform relevant agencies in the event that we determine it is likely that unlawful activity is taking place. 
 

Once we have considered the available evidence, made an assessment against the Eligibility and Public Interest Test and conducted an impact assessment, we will share our findings with you to check for factual accuracy. You will have at least 10 working days to let us know about any factual corrections. 

We will then convene an Accreditation Panel and share the draft report and impact assessment with them with at least five working days for consideration. 

The options available to the Panel will be to:

• determine that the Eligibility and Public Interest Standard is provisionally met,
• determine that the Eligibility and Public Interest Standard is provisionally not met
• adjourn to request further information, including seeking independent expert opinion and/or legal advice.

The Accreditation Panel may also set recommendations to be considered at any later Full Application. 

We will informally let you know the Accreditation Panel’s decision as soon as possible after their meeting. We will then prepare a final report and share it with and formally tell you the outcome when we share that report. You will have at least 10 working days to provide factual corrections to that final report. 

If you accept the Panel’s decision, we will end the assessment and start preparing for publication. 

If you do not accept Panel’s decision, you can Appeal.

Following the expiry of any opportunity to appeal or the completion of appeal processes, we will start preparing for publication.
 

To accredit a register, we must conduct an assessment against our Standards, conduct an impact assessment and consult on the impact of a decision to accredit through a Full Application assessment.

You can decide to apply:

• In two stages, by applying for a Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment before making a Full Application. The cost of a successful Provisional Eligibility and Public assessment will be discounted from any later Full Application. 
• In one stage, by applying for a Full Application Assessment. 

If you apply in one stage, you should read the guidance we give on Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment as well. We will send you all the documents to complete for both parts of the assessment. 

The Full Application process will not start until you have:

• completed the pre-application period
• submitted all required documents
• paid the application fee in full following the requirements set out in our Fees and Payment Guidance. 

A Full Application is made up of the following parts: 

• Full Application Form, which includes Data about your functions
• Analysis of documents or evidence you submit or we collect through desk research to support your application (including the eligibility and public interest test whether it has been provisionally assessed or not)
• Impact Assessment, which requires completion of the Impact Assessment Template
• A six-week Share your Experience Consultation
• Register Checks
• Registrant Website Checks, if relevant
• Audit, if relevant
• Interviews 
• Observations, if relevant
• Site visit or online equivalent

A Full Application normally takes eight months to complete.
 

You should refer to the Standards for Accredited Registers: Core Expectations and Evidence document to prepare your application. 

If you have completed the pre-application period and we have allocated you an application window, we will send you documents that you will need to complete to make your application. These documents are: 

• A Full Application form
• A fees and payment form.

All documents must be sent to accreditationteam@professionalstandards.org.uk. 

You will also need to share further documents setting out policies and procedures for the operation of your register. You will be able to see examples of the kinds of documents you should submit in the Standards for Accredited Registers: Core Expectations and Evidence document. 

You must not share any personal or sensitive information related to your registrants / members and patients or service users. If we receive any information of this kind, we will return or destroy it. 

You must complete these documents (on the templates and forms provided) and submit them to us during the two-month application window we give you. We may choose to delay your assessment until a later application window and offer the opportunity to another applicant if we do not receive your application, it remains incomplete by the end of the window, or you have not used the templates and forms we require. 

If you submit all the required documents, and we determine that they meet our requirements, we will let you know that you should make payment and provide you with bank details and payment instructions. 

Receipt of payment starts the assessment process. We will not start the assessment process until payment is received. 
 

We will acknowledge the start of the assessment process within five working days of receipt of payment. Our finance team will send you a receipt. 

You will be allocated an Accreditation Officer who will conduct the assessment and be the main point of contact. All correspondence will be sent to and from accreditationteam@professionalstandards.org.uk. 

Throughout the assessment, we may organise meetings or raise queries with you about the information we receive. If we raise queries, we will give you a minimum of 10 working days to respond. 

We will start our work by preparing to launch a six-week Share Your Experience Consultation as part of our duty to conduct an Impact Assessment. This will involve: 

• Preparing and agreeing text that explains your register and your registrants to stakeholders so that they can participate in the consultation
• Collecting stakeholder contact details from you and adding other contacts so that we can invite people to participate in the consultation 
• Publishing the fact of the application and the opening of the Share Your Experience Consultation. 

Responses to the Share Your Experience Consultation may be relevant to all parts of the Full Application assessment. 

Once the Share Your Experience Consultation is launched, we will then start reviewing the documents you have submitted in detail and start preparing a draft report against each of the Standards and Core Expectations. 

When we have completed the review of the documents, we will most likely raise queries with you. 

We will also plan arrangements, agreeing the dates with you, for Observations, Interviews, Audits and, if possible, we will try to organise these to occur during a Site Visit or Online Equivalent. 

Following these assessments and the responses to the Share Your Experience Consultation we will most likely raise more queries with you. 

When we have completed all the assessments and fully reviewed all the documents against our Standards, we will share our findings with you to check for factual accuracy. You will have at least 10 working days to let us know about any factual corrections. 

We will then convene an Accreditation Panel and share the draft report with them with at least five working days for them to consider it. 

The options available to the Panel will be to:

• Grant accreditation
• Grant accreditation subject to conditions
• Adjourn to request further information, including seeking independent expert opinion and/or legal advice
• Not accredit.

The Accreditation Panel may also set recommendations to be considered at the next assessment. 

We will informally let you know the Accreditation Panel’s decision as soon as possible after their meeting. We will then prepare a final report and share it with and formally tell you the outcome when we share that report. You will have at least 10 working days to provide factual corrections to that final report. 

If you accept the Panel’s decision, we will end the assessment and start preparing for publication.

If you do not accept Panel’s decision, you can Appeal.

Following the expiry of any opportunity to appeal or the completion of appeal processes, we will start preparing for publication.

Register Checks

We will conduct Register Checks for accuracy, completeness and clarity of your online register in our assessments. To conduct these checks, PSA staff will randomly select at least one per cent of your registrants to check their registration entry. We will also cross check against published complaint outcomes to make sure that sanctions are accurately displayed.

If we identify issues with your register, we may increase the sample size of register checks. 

Registrant Website Checks

If your registrants advertise their services, we will conduct Registrant Website Checks for misleading claims, potential breaches of Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) guidance or the Cancer Act. To conduct these checks, PSA staff randomly select at least one per cent of your registrants to check their websites, referring to relevant ASA guidance and the law. We will also check whether your registrants are displaying the PSA Quality Mark. 

If we identify issues with registrant advertising, we may increase the sample size of registrant website checks. 

Data about your functions

We will ask, in the forms you complete for assessments, for summary Data about your functions so that we can understand trends over time. Examples include: 

• registration application numbers
• registrant numbers
• complaints numbers (received, closed before investigation, closed at investigation, referred to Panel, closed at Panel, open cases at the different stages of your complaint process).

We will always ask for this data based on your reporting periods (such as your financial year) to prevent you from having to undertake further work to prepare and submit data. 

We will give you at least six weeks' notice (usually longer) that we require you to submit data.  

Share Your Experience 

During Full Application or Full Renewal assessments, we will launch a Share Your Experience Consultation for six weeks and actively seek feedback from your stakeholders. 

At any time, once accredited, we may receive feedback about your Accredited Register through our Share Your Experience process. 

We ask for consent to share feedback with you so that you are able to respond. If we receive consent, we will share the information. If we do not receive consent, we may, if it is possible to do so, create summaries of the feedback that protect the identity of the person or organisation that provided it. 

When we receive feedback about a current Accredited Register, we decide if it requires escalation by considering it against the following criteria, which are the same as our criteria for Targeted Review:

• a change which means one or more of our Standards are no longer likely to be met.
• an investigation into the Accredited Register by another regulatory body, such as the Charity Commission or Office of the Scottish Charities Regulator. 
• evidence of a new or potential harm arising from the practice of the Accredited Register or its registrants, which appears to be unmitigated. 

If we decide to escalate the matter we will contact you first to ask for information from you within 28 days. After receiving information from you we will either:

• close the matter
• consider the matter at the next Annual Check or Full Renewal assessment, or
• initiate a Targeted Review (see Targeted Review).

Much of the feedback that we receive relates to practitioner complaints. The PSA is prevented under law from intervening in practitioner complaints. Section 26 of our legislation  prevents us from doing anything in relation to the case of any individual in relation to whom:

• there are, are to be, or have been proceedings before a committee of an Accredited Register, or the Accredited Register itself or any officer of the Accredited Register, or
• an allegation has been made to the Accredited Register, or one of its committees or officers, which could result in such proceedings.

There is one exception to this, which is investigating particular cases with a view to making general reports on the performance by the Accredited Register of its functions or making general recommendations to the Accredited Register affecting future cases.

Observation

We may decide to use Observation to sit in on meetings (in person or online) as part of assessment processes. Examples include: 

• Board or Committee meetings
• Complaint Panel meetings

We will give you at least six weeks’ notice (usually longer) of our intent to observe meetings. 

When we observe, we will not participate in the meetings and we require the consent of all parties. 

Interview

We might need to ask for a meeting with key people in your organisation to gather information through an Interview. These are usually only required for a Full Application or in response to a Targeted Review when we are collecting information because we can normally gather information via correspondence or through meetings. 

Interview questions are based on information provided in your application, information gathered during the site visit and observations. We do not share the questions in advance with interviewees.  

The interviews can be carried out in person, by telephone or via videoconference. The interviews will be carried out by at least two members of the Accreditation team. We will take notes during the interviews.

Audits

If we think there is reason to, we may conduct Audits of your processes against:

• your own policy and procedures, and
• our Standards. 

Examples include: 

• Complaints audit, where we will randomly select and review from a list of completed complaints against registrants. We will ask for the files that we review to be redacted so that we do not transmit personal or confidential data unnecessarily. 
• Registration audit, where we will review randomly selected applications from a list of completed applications for registration (including readmission, restoration and renewal).
• Education audit, where will review a randomly selected education quality assurance case, such an initial or re-approval of an education provider or programme. 

We use these criteria to decide if a complaints audit is required: 

• 100 or more complaints a year 
• we have concerns about the complaints processes, identified through Share Your Experience submissions or other sources of intelligence 
• a major change to complaints handling processes since the last review.
• there has not been a complaints audit conducted within five years by the time a Full Renewal Assessment is initiated. 

As part of these audits, we may need to meet with people working for your register to collect or discuss information. 

We will give you at least six weeks’ notice (usually longer) of our intent to conduct an audit.

Site Visits or online equivalent 

We may need to apply our assessment methods in combination and it may be most efficient to organise a Site Visit or online equivalent where we arrange Interviews, Observations and Audits to occur over a two-day period. We prefer to visit in person so that we can learn as much as we can and build relationships, but we recognise that some registers operate remotely so we can conduct all the assessments online using Microsoft Teams and screen sharing. 

We aim to agree details and an agenda with an Accredited Register at least six weeks prior a site visit.

We are required by law  to carry out and have regard to an impact assessment in making our decisions to accredit or continue accrediting a register. We make these decisions on Full Application and Full Renewal assessments, but consider and record impacts for later consideration in most assessment processes. 

Before accrediting a register, the PSA must:

• make an assessment of the likely impact of doing so
• consult such persons as it considers appropriate (known as a Share Your Experience Consultation). 

The law requires us to have regard to such guidance relating to the preparation of impact assessments as we consider appropriate. 

An impact assessment must in, particular, include an assessment of the likely impact of accrediting the register on: 

• Persons who are, or eligible to be, included in the register
• Persons who employ persons who are, or eligible to be, included in the register
• Users of health care, users of social care in England and users of social work services in England. 

To conduct the impact assessment, the PSA may request information from an applicant for accreditation or an Accredited Register. If the request is refused, the PSA may refuse to accredit your register. 

We are legally permitted to publish the impact assessments we perform. We publish summaries of our impact assessments in our reports. 

This guidance and our approach to impact assessment is based on the Better Regulation Framework guidance.  While we use this guidance to shape good practice, we recognise some important distinctions between the purpose of the guidance and the purpose and law that surrounds our accreditation decisions:

• The statutory purpose of the Accredited Registers programme is to introduce alternatives to statutory provisions for regulation for practitioner groups and never to introduce regulation. As a result the guidance does not apply directly to our work. 
• The law requires us to specifically and only consider the impact of a decision to accredit rather than a range of options.
   

An Impact Assessment is an assessment of the impact of a policy proposal. 

For the Accredited Registers programme, this means assessing the potential impact of a decision to accredit a register. 

Accredited Registers may implement such changes in advance of assessment and approval at their own discretion. 

The extent, depth and detail of the impact assessment and analysis should be proportionate to the scale of costs and benefits, outcomes at stake, sensitivity of the proposal and the time available. Impact Assessments we carry out will include: 

• A description of who will be affected by a decision to accredit, including service users, organisations and businesses
• A description of the costs and benefits. 

It may include quantification of the effect where we estimate this is likely to be substantial. 

It will also include an analysis of the impact of accreditation on persons with protected characteristics, in compliance with our duties under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 and Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED).
 

As part of a Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest or Full Application assessment we will ask you to complete an Impact Assessment Template and submit it alongside your other application documents. 

Although we start the impact assessment process a Provisional Eligibility and Public Interest assessment, we will not make a final decision on accreditation. Instead, we will feed the impact assessment into any later Full Application assessment and update it. 

As part of a Full Renewal assessment form, we will ask you to provide updates to the impact assessment we produced in the previous assessment. 

In preparing for the launch of a Share Your Experience Consultation, we will ask you to provide or update contact details for your stakeholders. We will also conduct our own desk research to consider if there are stakeholders who we should invite to participate in the consultation. We always include current Accredited Registers and prospective registers in the consultation. 

When we launch the assessment, we will publish a Share Your Experience Consultation on our website on Decisions Page (and Accredited Registers Directory if you are already accredited). 

The consultation will be open for six weeks and we will extend the consultation to account for bank holidays. 

We will ask you to promote the consultation to your stakeholders. You must not take any action to influence how people respond to the consultation. If we see evidence of attempts to influence how respondents reply, then we may consider refusing to accredit your register. 

We will analyse the responses to the consultation to identify themes and if they relate to any of our standards and the impact assessment of a decision to accredit. We record our analysis on an impact assessment tool that we review each year and may decide to update to consider additional impacts. 

So that you can provide comments before a decision on accreditation is made, we will share with you:

• the completed impact assessment tool, and 
• a summary of the impact assessment in a draft report.

The decision-maker will consider the impact assessment before deciding on whether accreditation should be granted or continued. The decision-maker will consider if they are satisfied that the impact assessment represents a fair and proportionate assessment of the impact of the decision to accredit or not to accredit. 

Following a decision on accreditation, we will publish a summary of the impact assessment as part of our report.
 

The Accredited Registers programme operates on a cost recovery non-profit making basis. The programme’s budget is not subsidised by the fees for statutory regulators. 

When it was first introduced in 2012, the programme was subsidised by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) with the intention that it would become self-funding. In July 2021, a revised funding model was introduced to achieve this. It aims to ensure that operating costs are covered by fees income.

We consulted publicly on the need to achieve financial sustainability in December 2020 to February 2021. In our original consultation, we proposed a full per-registrant fee for renewals of accreditation. After considering the impacts of this, we adjusted this model to introduce a minimum and maximum cap. However, the principle of taking greater account of the size of the register, as determined by the number of its registrants, still applies.

Our revised fees model was introduced in July 2021. Our approach to fees will be reviewed annually through our business and budget planning process and renewed on a rolling three-year basis.  

We operate our annual budgets on the financial year (i.e. 1 April - 31 March). Our accounts are published within our Annual Reports. 

We have applied a 3% inflationary increase to all accreditation fees for 2026/27. Our fee cap was increased by 7%.
 

As set out in our Guidance for Applicants, applicants may submit an initial application to be provisionally assessed against the Eligibility and Public Interest standard. 

The fee for provisional assessment against the Eligibility and Public Interest standard is £1,470. This is refundable against the Full Application fee if the outcome is that the Eligibility and Public Interest standard is provisionally met and the Register wishes to proceed to a Full Application. If the Eligibility and Public Interest standard is not met, then the fee is non-refundable.

The fee for a Full Application is £15,602. This fee covers the cost of the review and consideration of the application and must be paid in full before assessment can begin. PSA reserves the right to charge a supplementary fee to review the application according to variables as described under Supplementary fees below. 

As set out in our application guidance, if an Accreditation Panel decides that independent legal advice or expert opinion is required to determine whether the Eligibility and Public Interest standard is met, then the costs will need to be met by the Register.
 

Fees for renewal of accreditation are paid annually, at the same point in the year. We will ask for registrant numbers as at 1 February, and calculate the fees using the formula set out below. The fees for the coming financial year will then be payable by 31 March. 

This approach applies whether an Accredited Register is due for a Full Renewal assessment (usually every three years), or an annual check to ensure stability of income and cashflow.
18.13    The formula for calculating fees is a:

• minimum base fee 
• plus a variable per-registrant fee, 
• with a maximum cap for any single Register. 

For 2026/27:

• the minimum base fee is £11,873 and 
• the maximum cap is £74,300.

These thresholds may be subject to indicative inflationary increases each year. 

The per-registrant fee is variable and determined by the total number of registrants across all current accredited registers in any given year. For 2026/27, the per-registrant fee is £6.45.
 

Accreditation can be granted at any point within the year. 

Once accredited (defined by the date on which we publish notification of accreditation being granted), the first 12 months of accreditation are covered by the application fee. Annual fees for the second year of accreditation will be calculated on a pro-rata basis, for the remaining months of the financial year. Thereafter, fees will be payable by 31 March each year for the year ahead.

To illustrate this, based on the fees model set out in this document:

• Register A applies for accreditation in July 2026 and pays the application fee. 
• Register A is accredited in January 2027. The fee payment for 2027/28 will be calculated on a pro-rata basis from January 2028 to March 2028 using registrant numbers at 1 February 2027.
• Fees for 1 April 2027 to 31 March 2028 are calculated on the basis of the formula above, using registrant numbers as at 1 February 2027 to determine the per-registrant cost.
   

If Accredited Registers make significant changes to their operations, governance or structure, we may need to undertake a review of whether they continue to meet our Standards for Regulators and Accredited Registers.  Details of this are set out in Notifications and Change Assessments. If this includes a re-assessment against the Eligibility and Public Interest Standard, for example if the Register is adding a new occupation to its Register, then we will charge a fee of £1,470 to undertake this assessment.

Payments can be made by bank transfer (BACS) to the PSA’s bank account. We will share the bank account details upon receipt of complete applications. 

Please contact the Finance team (finance@professionalstandards.org.uk) if you would like to discuss alternative methods of payment.

New applicants must complete the Fees and payment form and submit it to the Accreditation team. 

For payments for renewal of accreditation, Registers will receive an invoice with the terms for payment.
 

We reserve the right to charge supplementary fees on top of those described above, according to variables that reflect additional complexity and that require additional resources to assess the application. 

Examples include receiving high volumes of information from the Share your Experience invitation which requires extra work by the Accreditation team, the need to consider variations in education and training, the need for additional site visits, increased case sampling, additional reviews of the application, or where the impact assessment is complicated. This will be considered on a case-by-case basis. 

Any additional days required will be charged at £490 per day; calculated in half day units. Organisations are advised to discuss their application and the implications of costs with the Accreditation team before submitting their application so that we can provide a quote for the total cost.
 

This policy sets out what we will publish and for how long, and when and where we will publish information.

The PSA publishes a range of documents and reports. This policy only covers the notices, documents and outcomes that relate to our accreditation assessment processes. 

We publish on two different sections of the PSA website: 

• The Accreditation Decisions page 
• An Accredited Registers Directory pages 

We will make our own decisions about whether it is in the public interest to promote certain publications. We will inform you of our plans for promotion. 

We normally plan seven weeks to prepare for publication once an accreditation assessment decision has been made. 

These tables set out our publication arrangements.
 

This policy sets out the procedure for an eligible applicant or Accredited Register to appeal a decision made about its accreditation status by an Accreditation Panel of the PSA. 

An applicant or Accredited Register may formally request the PSA to re-reconsider a decision which affects its accreditation status. Wherever possible, the PSA will work with applicants or Accredited Registers to informally resolve disputes as an alternative to the appeals process.
 

Applicants and Accredited Registers may appeal the decisions made by the PSA regarding their accreditation. 

Only decisions made by an Accreditation Panel that adversely affect accreditation status can be appealed. 

The types of decisions that can be appealed are:

• A provisional outcome that the eligibility and public interest test is not met
• Refusal to grant or renew accreditation 
• Suspension of accreditation 
• Withdrawal of accreditation
• Imposition of Conditions. 

For the avoidance of doubt, the following decisions are not appealable:

• A decision to issue recommendations to an applicant or Accredited Register
• A decision to initiate a Targeted Review 
• A decision to refer directly to an Accreditation Panel
• A decision to adjourn an Accreditation Panel meeting 
• A decision to publish a report or other document.

Applicants and Accredited Registers may appeal a decision which they think is unfair, or wrong. The reasons for this may include but are not limited to the following:

• We have deviated from our processes
• We have not taken due account of evidence that was submitted for an accreditation decision
• We have mis-interpreted evidence, failed to place due weight on relevant factors or that our analysis was otherwise flawed.

If the reason you think our decision was flawed falls outside of these areas, then this should be specified within the Appeal Form.  We will then consider it in line with the process outlined below. 
 

You should complete our Appeal Form which can be downloaded from our Guidance pages. The information you provide should clearly explain why you disagree with the decision and on what grounds. It is your responsibility to explain why you believe the decision made is incorrect. 

You should include any documents that support your appeal, such as evidence that supports why you do not agree with our decision. 

The Appeal Form should be submitted to the PSA’s CEO by email to appeals@professionalstandards.org.uk. Your Appeal Form must be submitted within 10 working days of a formal notification of an Accreditation Panel’s decision. 

The subject line of the email should contain the name of your organisation.

If you decide to withdraw your appeal, you can do so at any time up until an Appeal Panel has made a decision. You can withdraw your appeal by stating your intent to withdraw in writing. The appeal will be stopped and no decision from the appeal will be reached or published.
 

An appeal by the applicant or Accredited Register (‘the appellant’) against a decision made by an Accreditation Panel will follow the process outlined below. 

The appellant will bear the burden of establishing to the Appeal Panel that the original decision of the Accreditation Panel should be overturned. 

Following receipt of an appeal, the PSA’s CEO will determine whether the appeal has been received within the required timeframe and whether it has been authorised by a senior responsible officer of an eligible Register. They will also consider whether the appeal relates to decisions that can be appealed. If these requirements are not met, the appeal will be dismissed and the appellant informed of the reason for this. The appellant will be given the option to pursue their concerns through our complaints processes.  

If the requirements as set out above are met, an Appeal Panel will be convened. The Appeal Panel will usually meet and make its decision within 30 working days of receipt of the Appeal. 

The Accreditation team, and/or the original Accreditation Panel, will have 10 working days from receipt of the Appeal to provide information to the Appeal Panel to consider. Any representations made by the Accreditation team and/or original Accreditation Panel will be shared with the appellant. 

The appellant will have 10 working days to provide comment on this information by email. Any information provided beyond this timeframe will only be accepted at the discretion of the Appeal Panel Chair. The appellant’s comments will be shared with the Appeal Panel and/or original Accreditation Panel. 

The Appeal Panel will consider the appeal in a closed meeting. The Appeal Panel may wish to seek further information or clarity from the appellant, the Accreditation team and/or the original Accreditation Panel and can do so prior to the meeting. If further information or clarity is determined to be required at the meeting, usually this will be done by inviting a written submission, which will be shared with the other parties involved for comment while the meeting is adjourned. Where this is not possible or practical, a conference call during the Appeal Panel meeting may be arranged. All parties will be invited to attend the conference call. 

The Appeal Panel will make decisions by consensus and is able to: 

• Uphold the appeal and refer the matter to a new Accreditation Panel for consideration 
• Uphold the appeal and substitute a decision if it has sufficient evidence to do so. A substituted decision is any decision which could have been made by the original Accreditation Panel 
• Dismiss the appeal. 

If a consensus cannot be reached, then the Panel will consider if it needs to defer, either to seek new evidence of to deliberate upon their judgement. If no consensus is reached following this then the decision will be decided by majority.

Following the meeting, the Appeal Panel will issue its decision in writing to the appellant. The Appeal Panel will provide written reasons for its decision.

The Appeal Panel’s decision will usually be communicated to the appellant within five working days of the Appeal Panel meeting. The decision will be published in accordance with the PSA’s Accredited Registers Publication Policy.

The Appeal Panel’s decision is final. Should the appeal be upheld, then we will take appropriate corrective action to amend or change the decision. If the appeal is not upheld, no further appeal will be considered. 
 

The Appeal Panel will be constituted of three members of the Board who were not involved in the appealed decision. 

The PSA’s Chair will appoint the Appeal Panel members, and decide which of these should be appointed as the Appeal Panel Chair. 

Any decision to postpone or adjourn the proceedings will be at the discretion of the Appeal Panel. 

The Appeal Panel will act in accordance with the PSA’s values. These are:

• Integrity
• Transparency
• Respect
• Fairness
• Teamwork.
   

The Appeal Panel may be assisted by a: 

• Legal advisor
• Specialist advisor. 

It is for the Chair of the Appeal Panel to determine whether assistance from an advisor is required. The function of legal and specialist advisors is to advise the Appeal Panel on any areas within the advisor’s expertise. 

In addition, the legal advisor will have a duty to intervene to advise the Appeal Panel on any issue where it appears that without an intervention, there is the possibility of an error being made. 

An advisor may be present throughout the meeting of the Appeal Panel. The advisor may not participate in the decision making of the Panel and is not entitled to decide the appeal. 

The Appeal Panel Chair will ensure that any advice or interventions tendered to the Appeal Panel by an advisor is included in its written decision and reasons given for accepting or rejecting that advice. 
 

Download the Appeal Form here