Public health specialists: regulation
Seeks views on how non-medical public health specialists will be regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
Non-medical or dental public health specialists are going to be subject to statutory regulation by the HCPC instead of registering on the voluntary list currently held by the UK Public health Register (UKPHR). The draft Order contains the details of how this regulation will work in practice.
We are asking for views on the draft Order. In particular we are asking about:
- fitness to practice cases
- giving eligible public health specialists time to register with the HCPC
- protection of the title ‘public health specialist’
- impact of public health specialists from a non-medical or dental background being required to register with the HCPC
People have raised concerns about the length of this consultation and the issues it addresses. In particular there are concerns about which organisation should be the regulator. So we have decided:
- to extend the consultation period by 4 weeks, so the consultation will run for 10 weeks and now close on 14th November
- to add 2 questions to the consultation
The new questions are:
Question 1. Do you agree with the Department’s decision that the HCPC should be the statutory regulator for public health specialists from backgrounds other than medicine or dentistry If not, who and why?
Question 2. Do you think that public health specialists should be regulated by another body? If so, who and why?