1. Professional Regulation Professional responsibility & accountability Persons (patients; colleagues) Society (public; professions; employer) Self (integrity; conscience)

2. Professional Regulation Functions: protection of the public professional self-regulation competence performance management quality assurance setting standards

3. Professional Regulation Professional self-regulation: protect professional boundaries by maintaining a Register protect professional title(s) establish professional standards –education; practice; conduct remove those whose performance fell below established standards

4. Professional Regulation Professional self-regulation: autonomy of profession versus best interests of patient

5. Professional Regulation Current reforms Public protection key rationale for professional regulation Increased lay representation on regulatory bodies Reforms of professional regulatory bodies –Health Act 1999 power for speedy reform of each regulatory body by way of secondary legislation (statutory instrument) –Health Professions Council (HPC) - April 2002 –Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals (CRHP)

6. Professional Regulation Current reforms Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals (CRHP) functions, powers and duties are set out in the National Health Service Reform and Healthcare Professions Act 2002, Part 2. oversees the activities of the various regulatory bodies of the health care professions co-ordinates good practice guidelines and other aspects of the regulatory bodies' work encourages the regulatory bodies to act in the interests of patients

7. Professional Regulation Current reforms Council for the Regulation of HealthcareProfessionals (CRHP) Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals v General Medical Council and Another (2004) –case concerned, inter alia, the terms of the National Health Service Reform and Healthcare Professions Act 2002 - unclear as to whether CRHP power to refer cases to the relevant court, applies to cases where no finding of professional misconduct has been made –principal effect of this decision is to clarify that the Court may make findings of serious professional misconduct against healthcare professionals, even if their own professional bodies have cleared the individuals concerned.

8. Professional Regulation Regulatory BodyHealthcare Professions Practitioners (approx) Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB) Pharmacy38,000 Pharmacists General Medical Council (GMC) Medicine190,000 doctors General Dental Council Dentistry34,000 dentists Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Nursing670,000 Nurses, midwives and health visitors General Optical Council Optometry18,000 opticians

9. Professional Regulation Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain The Society can deal with: complaints about the professional service provided by a pharmacist/pharmacy at all levels of healthcare, eg, a dispensing error, wrong labelling, or out of date medicine supplied complaints about the conduct of a pharmacist, eg, unprofessional behaviour complaints against owners of pharmacies including companies Statutory Committee – disciplinary committee of the RPSGB

10. Professional Regulation The Future for Self-Regulation New framework for professional regulation –Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals (CRHP) Systems for Performance and Quality Standards in the NHS –Clinical Governance Agenda –National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) –Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection (CHAI) –National Performance Assessment Framework (PAF) –Nations Service Frameworks (NSFs) Increased involvement of employer in regulation

11. Professional Regulation The Future for Self-Regulation “The redesign of jobs around the needs of patients, working across traditional professional divides, giving staff more responsibility and knowledge, focussing roles and tasks on what patients actually need in terms of their clinical care raises serious questions about the effectiveness and relevance of the present uni-professional structure of self-regulation.” Department of Health HR Strategy for England 2002