Regulation of health and social care professionals report

In April 2014, the Law Commission published a report focused on the legislation of healthcare professionals in the UK and social care professionals in England.

To establish consistency across the 32 different registered healthcare professions, regulated by nine different bodies with different legislative arrangements, the Law Commission recommended that all of the recognised healthcare professions should be regulated under a single piece of legislation and set out a draft bill to that effect.

The report also recommended there should be greater operational autonomy, and greater consistency between the regulators, in certain key areas such as fitness to practise adjudication. It recommended regulators should be given powers to make legal rules which were not subject to approval by government, or any parliamentary procedure, and the government should be given powers to notify and then give directions to a regulator, or the Professional Standards Authority, if it had failed or was likely to fail to perform any of its statutory functions. If the body failed to comply with any direction, the government should be able to give effect to the direction itself.