We have changed the wording of the standards to move registrants away from a passive understanding of the standards, and towards active implementation of them.
Why?
This reflects the importance of registrants being autonomous and caring professionals. More active wording makes clear the expectations on registrants.
Examples of how this impacts the standards:
We have removed ‘be able to’ from the beginning of several standards.
For example, new phrasing in standard 1 makes clear that registrants must ‘practise safely and effectively’ instead of being able to practise safely and effectively:
“1. Registrant[s] must practise safely and effectively within their scope of practice”
In standard 4.2 “initiate solutions” was replaced with “take action”:
“4.2. Registrant[s] must use their skills, knowledge and experience, and the information available to them, to make informed decisions and take action where necessary.”
Expectations of registrants
This theme cuts across a registrant’s entire practise. Our standards of conduct, performance and ethics set out active duties for registrants who have identified concerns about safety. In a similar way, the standards of proficiency now expect registrants to be able to demonstrate rather than merely understand the standards of proficiency which apply to them.
Registrants should consider whether they are always actively implementing all of our standards. Registrants may find it helpful to reflect on our standards and assess themselves against them. For instance, thinking through which specific standards are relevant in a service-user interaction and/or thinking through if there were opportunities for improvement.
