Today sees us launch our new five-year strategy.
Our new strategy brings together all that we have heard over the past six months from patients, registrants, professional bodies, education providers, employers and partners, to set out our focus for the next five years.
Our mission remains clear: we protect the public by setting clear standards for professionals, using evidence to encourage safe and inclusive care and taking action when things go wrong.
However, we will continue to adapt and evolve as the significant changes across the healthcare landscape unfold. With the system facing complex challenges alongside unprecedented demand, workforce and funding shortages place pressure on those who manage and deliver care. At the same time, innovation, technological advances, new models of care, and an important focus on equality and inclusion are changing expectations of professionals and the public alike.
In this complex environment, the public place their trust in health and care professionals and need to be confident the care they receive is safe and effective.
We aim to deliver on four core objectives:
1. Putting patients at the centre of smarter, preventative regulation
What is this about?
Shifting regulation from a focus on reacting when things go wrong to proactive regulation by embedding patient experience, data, and behavioural insight into our work, ensuring that the voices and needs of patients drive our priorities and decisions.
What does this look like in practice?
This includes sharing insights from the data we hold, to drive a more proactive, preventative model of regulation, as well as setting up a new patient panel to ensure our work is informed by the lived experiences of the people we are here to protect.
2. Supporting healthcare workforce development through proportionate, agile regulation
What is this about?
Delivering modern regulation that strengthens the UK healthcare workforce by supporting safe, effective practice, removing unnecessary barriers, and adapting to the evolving and diverse needs of professionals and patients.
What does this look like in practice?
This includes publishing our revised Standards of Education and Practice, completing the second phase of our work to improve our international registration processes, and commissioning research to help us gain a deeper understanding of how AI tools are being used across the professions we regulate.
3. Technology-enabled regulatory excellence and organisational sustainability
What is this about?
Investing in our people, harnessing emerging technologies and modernising our systems to deliver efficient, high quality, and user-focused regulation that meets the evolving needs of public protection.
What does this look like in practice?
This includes delivering a new system to modernise the way our Registrants interact with us, so that they can access what they need, when they need it, in as smooth and easy a way as possible.
4. Strengthening public protection through the regulation of NHS managers
What is this about?
Extending regulatory oversight to NHS managers* (in England) to ensure a consistent level of accountability, professionalism, and ethical leadership.
What does this look like in practice?
Remaining responsive to the emerging legislative timeline for a hospital managers regulatory scheme and the wider reform agenda. We will work closely with government, NHS leaders, representative bodies and the wider system to ensure that a barring system for NHS board-level managers and their direct reports*, ensures clear standards of conduct and accountability while being effective, proportionate and firmly focused on public protection.
* The definitions of which senior leadership roles will be within scope is yet to be determined and will be determined based on public protection impact.
While the document sets out our direction, priorities and the improvements we will deliver, the detail of our work sits in our Corporate Plan, which will focus on how we turn these priorities into action.
HCPC Chair, Christine Elliott said:
‘“Over the past five years, we have delivered a significant programme of reform, strengthening the HCPC as a confident, modern regulator with a clear public purpose. Our ambition for the future remains high. Regulation has a vital role to play in shaping a health and care system that is collaborative, digitally enabled and focused on preventative healthcare. I am proud to set out the next steps for the HCPC, as we work with partners across the system to support professional leadership, workforce wellbeing and safe, effective practice that enables people and communities to thrive.”’
Chief Executive Bernie O’Reilly said:
‘“As an organisation, we have continued to evolve and adapt over the years. This new strategy sets out how we will build on our progress to date, from working closely with the wider healthcare system to help prevent risks to patient safety, continuing to improve our fitness to practise processes, through to supporting registrants to navigate a complex working environment, such as using AI ethically.
‘We are committed to delivering a more agile, and proactive model of regulation so we can ensure the HCPC remains a modern, responsive and effective regulator for the future”. ’