DH (England) Command Paper: Enabling Excellence, Autonomy and Accountability for Healthcare Workers (UK), Social Workers (England) 
and Social Care Workers (England)
The Department of Health's Command Paper; Enabling Excellence, Autonomy and Accountability for Healthcare Workers, Social Workers and Social Care Workers, was published on 16 February and presented to the UK Parliament by the Secretary of State for Health.
The Command Paper supersedes the WHITE PAPER TRUST ASSURANCE AND SAFETY. Work leading from The White Paper and the Health and Social Care Act 2008, together with subordinate legislation, led to the Health profession regulators' Councils being changed to make them smaller/ more business like and to harmonise and rationalise regulatory systems and the regulators are now more accountable to Ministers in all 4 countries. The Councils' boards now have no professional majority, with one Scottish Minister appointment to the CHRE and one non-executive member of each of the other Councils to be someone who works or resides wholly or mainly in Scotland.
The Command Paper sets out a strategy for the professional regulation system in the United Kingdom. It was published as a background to the Health and Social Care Bill to provide a wider strategic context on the thinking behind the changes to arms length bodies which will be enacted through the Bill. The Ministerial foreword in the Paper makes it clear that the detailed proposals from the Command Paper are being actively discussed with the other administrations in view of the devolved elements. In addition, Ministers in all parts of the UK have confirmed a commitment to a UK wide approach to regulation of the healthcare professions.
The paper confirms that statutory regulation of further healthcare profession groups is unlikely in the near future. It states that other alternatives to statutory regulation, such as voluntary registers and licensing will be considered instead, unless there is a very pressing need for regulation. There will also be pressure on the regulatory bodies to keep fees down and any proposals of regulators intending to merge with other regulators to reduce costs will be viewed sympathetically.
The Paper also confirms that the Law Commission is being asked to review the existing legislation for the regulation of healthcare workers across the UK and social care workers in England only and will report in 2014.
Health and Social Care Bill
The upcoming Health and Social Care Bill will make provision for further changes to regulation of the healthcare professions. This includes the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) being made more independent and becoming self funded as well as being able to accredit voluntary registers for healthcare workers across the UK and social care workers in England only. For further information please see Further Legislation.
Regulation of Pharmacists
The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has been established to replace the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain as the regulator for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy premises. The GPhC became fully operational from 27 September 2010. For further information on the GPhC, click here.
Regulation of Doctors
The General Medical Council has consulted on its plans for revalidation. The consultation, called 'Revalidation: the way ahead', ended on Friday 4 June 2010. The GMC published its response to the consultation on 18 October 2010 with an accompanying statement of intent outlining steps towards readiness to commence revalidation by late 2012. Related regulations to responsible officers were laid at Westminster and came into operation on 1 January 2011, meaning Responsible Officers will now have to be nominated or appointed by all the bodies designated in the Regulations. Scotland intends a similar timetable, but maintaining the pace meantime.
The GMC has developed a new easy-to-use toolkit to help all doctors to contribute to the development of revalidation. The practical resources are designed to support doctors discussing revalidation and contributing to the GMC's consultation. For further information please see, Medical Regulation - Revalidation
Regulation of Dentists:
The General Dental Council's (GDC) consultation on proposals for revalidation ended on 6 January 2011. Revalidation will provide, for the very first time, a way of checking that dentists carry on meeting the GDC's standards after they have joined it's registers.
This consultation, which can be found on the GDC's website www.gdc-uk.org, sets out proposals for revalidating dentists. The proposals aim to avoid over-regulation by making as much use of existing and developing quality systems within dentistry as possible. Their approach is designed so that dentists can meet all the GDC's requirements and those of other dental service regulators under one umbrella.
Register for suppliers of unlicensed herbal medicines
The report of the Pitillo Steering Group, set up by the Department of Health (DH), strongly recommended statutory regulation of acupuncturists, herbal medicine practitioners and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners by the Health Professions Council (HPC). This led to DH undertaking a joint consultation on behalf of all 4 countries in November 2009 on whether, and if so how, to regulate these practitioners.
After considering the final analysis of the consultation responses the four UK health departments have agreed that the HPC will hold a statutory register of practitioners who supply unlicensed herbal medicines. This new model of assurance will differ from the conventional model of statutory professional regulation, but will ensure that practitioners have met certain registration standards. The Scottish Government are working with officials in the three other UK administrations to agree the operational detail of the new statutory register to be held by the HPC, in view of devolved elements. Once the legislation to introduce the register has been drafted the 4 UK Health Departments will jointly consult on it, giving practitioners and the public the opportunity to comment.
Healthcare Support Workers
For information on the standards and codes please see the following links;
Healthcare Support Workers - Standards and Codes / Standards for the Healthcare Workforce (SHOW) website