The Professional Standards Authority accredits registers so you can be confident when choosing health and care practitioners.
When you’re looking for a health or care practitioner it can be hard to know where to start. We make sure that the public is protected when choosing and using health and care services by independently assessing organisations who register practitioners, who are not regulated by law, working both within and outside the NHS.
What do Accredited Registers do?
Accredited Registers help people get better care by ensuring that the health practitioners they register are competent and trustworthy. They set standards for people working in unregulated health and care occupations, encourage them to meet them and take action to protect the public when necessary. They ensure that the information they and their registrants provide is clear and helps you to make informed choices about the practitioner you want to see and about the treatments, therapies, care and products they offer.
Accredited Registers work alongside employers, commissioners, local authorities, patient and consumer protection agencies as part of a quality assurance network.
- They enable you to feel confident that the person you see is competent and trustworthy
- They take action to protect you from risk
- They work together to improve standards
Registers that have passed our assessment can use our Quality Mark (our approved logo) and appear in Find A Register. Only registers that we have accredited can do this, so you can be confident about the practitioners you choose to meet your health and wellbeing needs, such as acupuncturists, counsellors, complementary therapists and foot health practitioners, amongst many others.
It’s not compulsory for unregulated practitioners to join an Accredited Register. They choose to do it because it shows their commitment to their area of work and makes them part of a professional community that works to high standards and policies. When the register they’re on displays our quality mark you can be sure that its commitment to public safety has been verified by us.
Use the links on the left to find out more about Accredited Registers and the Standards needed to achieve our Quality Mark.