Take part in a Department of Health consultation on the future of health professional regulation

13 December 2017

The Department of Health is seeking views on proposals to reform the regulation system for healthcare professionals in the UK. The consultation asks questions about how to improve the protection of the public through more efficient, responsive and effective regulation

We would encourage you to take part in this important consultation, so that your views about how you and other health professionals should be regulated can be heard. The consultation closes on 23 January 2018.

In the consultation document, the Department of Health has set out that it wants to:

  • design a more responsive model of professional regulation which can swiftly adapt to changing patterns of healthcare, developing roles and new ways of working without the need for frequent legislative change
  • establish clear criteria to assess which level of professional regulatory oversight is appropriate for different professional groups
  • consider whether the current number and set up of healthcare regulatory bodies is delivering effective and efficient public protection
  • ensure that regulatory bodies have a consistent and flexible range of powers that allow them to take a prompt and proportionate approach to concerns about an individual’s fitness to practise
  • enable regulators, working with professional bodies and others, to better support professionalism among registered groups and to provide assurance on an ongoing basis that practitioners are competent and up to date;
  • increase joint-working, exploring shared functions and services between the regulators.

The views the Department of Health receives through the consultation will inform decisions on how to reform healthcare professional regulation.

In our statement in response to the publication of the consultation, we welcomed this opportunity to have a robust, open and wide-ranging discussion about how regulation can best protect and assure patients and the public, and support the professionalism of all health professionals.

We will respond to the consultation having considered all of the questions raised and in particular how these relate to pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and registered pharmacies and the services they provide to patients and the public. You will be able to read our response on our website from 23 January 2018.

Ahead of any potential future legislative change, we are continuing work to improve how we regulate, including by working more closely with other regulators, and introducing revalidation, to help pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to focus on professionalism, improvement and person-centred care.