Health and care professional regulator fees

There are nine health and care professional regulatory bodies in the UK:

• General Chiropractic Council (GCC)
• General Dental Council (GDC)
• General Medical Council (GMC)
• General Optical Council (GOC)
• General Osteopathic Council (GOsC)
• General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)
• Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)
• Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)
• Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI)

The professional regulators are independent statutory bodies whose purpose is to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public by setting robust standards for their health care professionals across the United Kingdom.

To practise one of the professions, people must be registered with the relevant regulator and demonstrate that they have met a set of required standards.

The main source of funding for the nine separate regulators for healthcare professionals is through individual registration fees, which must be paid by healthcare professionals in order to be registered to practice in the UK. The regulators are responsible for determining the level of their annual registration fees.

The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) is responsible for providing oversight and scrutiny of the nine health and care professional regulatory bodies. In 2015, the Government introduced regulations which require the professional regulators to pay the Authority a fee in order to fund the organisation. The fees become payable from 1 August 2015. Some of the professional regulatory bodies have said that the new PSA fee has required them to increase their registration and renewal fees.