Executive summary

Our key findings are:

• Quality assurance remains central to the work of education providers

  There is a strong quality assurance mindset at education providers, and a focus on the quality of new and existing education programmes was prevalent in our assessment activities. 

• Education providers actively seek to understand and respond to challenges

  The sector is outward facing with awareness of current challenges and initiatives, such as the pace of change with emerging technology, an aging population, and the ‘three shifts’ within the NHS 10 Year Plan for England. Challenges that directly or indirectly affect delivery of programmes were often well thought through and considered in line with our outcome-focused standards.

• Continued issues with financial sustainability for education providers

  At times, the challenges were acute (particularly for Higher Education Institutions), which led to some education providers considering staffing models and other areas linked to resourcing. We are working with the sector closely to understand financial challenges so that we are clear about our expectations with respect to resourcing. We require that programmes are financially sustainable. When we need to hold education providers to this expectation, we will also play a supportive role when it is in our regulatory remit to do so. 

• Partnership working is integral to the delivery of high-quality programmes and has become more important due to shifts to alternative delivery models

  Strong partnerships are integral to the sustainability and quality of programmes. Good partnership working is best underpinned by formal arrangements which clearly defined objectives, expectations, and responsibilities which are supported by well-defined engagement frameworks. We found that strong and specific partnership working between education providers and employers was not always in place for apprenticeship programmes in England, which is essential for our standards being met. Our requirements for employers to be in place at the point of approval was not always understood by education providers, and this delayed approval (and therefore start dates) for some apprenticeship programmes, while education providers worked to meet our requirements.  

• Education providers can enable workforce expansion, but not all professions need expansion at the rate being delivered

  The pipeline of future professionals has grown. Education providers recognise the key role they play in supplying the UK workforce with highly skilled individuals who focus on the needs of service users. They have overcome challenges presented, often in innovative ways which align with our standards. Through our assessments, we were mostly confident that education providers had grown programme capacity in a reasonable way. However, our stakeholders are now telling us that there is oversupply of new graduates in some professions. This, combined with challenges of growing practice-based learning opportunities, education provider resources, and growing the pool of academic staff may mean that capacity ceilings are being reached for some professions. There is also uncertainty linked to the NHS 10 Year Plan in England, as the future workforce needed to deliver the Plan has not yet been defined. 

• Programme capacity is not always filled, particularly for smaller professions

  There are recruitment challenges for some professions, which mean available capacity numbers are not filled for some programmes. Increasing programme capacity alone is not the only solution to developing a sustainable workforce, and bodies such as NHS England have workstreams to address workforce challenges for their defined ‘small professions’. Through this work, there is recognition that workforce development is not just about ensuring capacity numbers increase, but it is also important to work upstream with potential future professionals, to ensure HCPC professions are seen as attractive career options. 

• Challenges in delivering a steady supply of new academic staff means that recruiting replacement or additional staff is sometimes difficult

  There are known issues with the number of academic staff available for many of the professions we regulate, which means that recruiting replacement or additional staff is sometimes difficult for education providers. Education providers recognised their own contributions to developing the pipeline of academic staff, but this is a systemwide issue, with solutions needed across the system. This area is currently being worked on by relevant organisations, such as NHS England through their Educator Workforce Strategy. 

• Education providers routinely use data to inform decision making

  All education providers use data in some way to inform their operations, whether that be applicant and learner data to inform widening participation and learner support, financial data to plan, and / or other data sources and uses. However, there were problems with feedback fatigue, which impacted internal education provider feedback mechanisms (such as module feedback), and external mechanisms (such as the National Education and Training Survey). 

• All education providers are considering the use of artificial intelligence (AI) within education and training

  We saw good engagement and understanding of our advice about AI in education, with many education providers explicitly setting out how they are managing increased access to artificial intelligence for learners, particularly how they uphold academic integrity, and support staff and learners in this area. 

• There are different approaches and challenges for Higher Education Institution (HEI) and non-HEI education providers

  We approve programmes at HEIs and many other types of organisations. Due to the commonalities and supporting structures present for HEIs, non-HEIs often needed to provide evidence at a more fundamental level to address our standards. This was the case when requesting approval for new programmes, and to show continued good performance.  

• Most education providers have been able to align their programmes with our revised standards of proficiency (SOPs) and standards of conduct, performance and ethics at the first time of asking – but there are some exceptions.

  Our revised standards of proficiency (SOPs) became effective in September 2023, and our revised standards of conduct, performance and ethics (SCPEs) became effective in September 2024. From these dates, education providers needed to deliver the revised standards to all new learners, and ensure they meet them on completing programmes. These revised standards set out what is needed for safe and effective professional practice. Most education providers assessed to date have demonstrated alignment with the revised SOPs and SCPEs, showing us how they reviewed their programmes to do this. This was pleasing to see as it provides a tangible outcome of our review exercise, linked to our public protection duties. We did however find that a small number of education providers were not able to evidence how they aligned to our revised SOPs at the first time of asking, and therefore we have undertaken closer reviews for relevant programmes to make sure they deliver our professional requirements to ensure the public is protected. 

• Complexity in assessments is growing, and therefore good forward planning by education providers is required to ensure intended programme start dates can be met

  We found that education providers who do not run existing HCPC-approved programmes, and / or where proposals are complex to review against our standards (eg where there are multiple parties involved in delivery), required longer assessments against our standards. Education providers should be aware of this, and ensure they plan regulatory engagement in good time to meet our standards by their intended start date.