Trust, Assurance and Safety – The Regulation of Health Professionals In The 21st Century
On the 21 February the Government published a White Paper, Trust, Assurance and Safety – The Regulation of Health Professionals In The 21st Century, based on the Chief Medical Officer’s Report, Good doctors, safer patients. The White Paper proposes a framework to sustain the confidence of the public in the profession and to develop a flexible and proportionate system to improve the safety and quality of the care received by the patients.
The key areas identified are:
- Independence
- The regulators must be seen to be independent and impartial in carrying out their role.
- Revalidation
- Regular revalidation of health professionals to demonstrate fitness to practice
- Local Investigation of concerns
- Including “Recorded Concerns” offering a proportionate local response to problems and enabling patterns of misconduct or behaviour to be tracked over time and place.
- National Investigation of concerns
- The civil standard of proof (on a balance of probabilities) will be used to adjudge fitness to practice rather than the criminal standard of proof (beyond all reasonable doubt).
- A separation of investigation and prosecution from adjudication in order to ensure public confidence in the process and uphold the independence. There will be a right of appeal to the High Court.
- Education
- Non-medical regulatory bodies should continue to oversee educational standards
- Information about Health Professionals
- Recommendation for a single standard for the professional registers
- Promotion of sharing information through-out Europe.
- New Roles and emerging professions
- Proposals to introduce a range of registers for allied professionals including applied psychologists and psychotherapists
- Working party to develop criteria to determine which roles should be included on statutory registers.
To access the full White Paper click here.
