FAQs on the Government's consultation on Healthcare regulation: deciding when statutory regulation is appropriate

A.  We welcome the consultation’s proposals for a process which will help the Government make decisions on whether to regulate or deregulate professions.

The Health and Care Bill will give the Secretary of State powers to deregulate as well as to regulate groups within health and care. It is important that the process involved in such decisions is transparent and evidence-based.

We support the proposals to make decisions about which professionals are regulated based on the risk of harm arising from practice. We will be reviewing the consultation in detail and responding in full.

A. No.

We have developed a methodology that we recommend is used to make decisions about whether and how a group should be regulated, but we have no official role in making any recommendations.

The legislation that sets out what the PSA can and can’t do says that we can be commissioned by ministers in any of the four countries to give advice (section 26A of the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002).

The open consultation proposes that Government may seek advice from the PSA on whether different groups should be regulated, or on aspects of the criteria, however this would fall under our existing powers to be commissioned to provide advice.   

However, the Government did consult in 2017/18 on giving the PSA a formal role advising which groups should be regulated. In their formal response to that consultation they stated that: ‘The UK and Devolved Governments believe that the PSA is best placed to provide independent advice on which groups of healthcare professionals should be regulated.’    

A. As well as our role overseeing the 10 statutory professional regulators, the PSA is also responsible for operating the Accredited Registers programme for voluntary registers of unregulated practitioners.

Under the programme we accredit registers which meet our standards. This helps to ensure that registers are focused on the public interest, manage risks effectively, check that practitioners are competent and have in place a robust process for managing complaints.

This allows members of the public and those commissioning care or employing individuals to choose practitioners from a register which meets our standards and is committed to protecting the public.

The consultation notes that where the Government and the Devolved Administrations do not consider that statutory regulation is required for a profession, they encourage organisations that register health and care professionals to seek accreditation from the PSA.  

A. The PSA is primarily funded by the statutory professional regulators so would need to be commissioned by Government to provide advice.

We can be commissioned by other organisations; however, this is subject to available capacity to carry out such work. Any recommendations made to the Government would have to be based on an analysis of the evidence.

It is possible that in our role overseeing the statutory professional regulators and Accredited Registers we may come across risks or issues which we may want to draw to the attention of the Government or other bodies with a role in managing such risks. We will be considering further how we manage this.

A. We do not have a firm view on other groups which should be statutorily regulated. We think that decisions on regulation should be based on a proper assessment of risks arising from practice and have developed a methodology to carry out this assessment.

Alongside statutory regulation there are a range of other ways to manage occupational risk which should be considered.

We welcome the proposals in the consultation to put in place a transparent process for the Government to make decisions on regulation of new groups. We will be responding in full to the consultation in due course.

A. Decisions on regulation of new groups should be based on evidence of risk of harm arising from practice. Any decisions on deregulation of currently regulated professions will need to take into account the potential risks of removing the safeguards provided by statutory regulation. 

We welcome the proposals in the consultation to put in place a transparent process for the Government to make decisions on de-regulation of professions. We will be responding in full to the consultation in due course.