Professional Standards Authority

Lord Willis of Knaresborough Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, and I pay tribute to her work as chair of the PSA. The benefits of accredited voluntary registration are clear. The point is to give the public, employers and commissioners choice to use people on a register that the authority has independently assessed and approved, and only those registers that the authority has accredited are allowed to use its kitemark.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, the 2013 annual report of the Professional Standards Authority states that its third strategic objective is to:

“Enhance public confidence in unregulated health and care occupations”.

How many voluntary registers of healthcare support workers are now registered with the standards authority, how many individual staff do they cover and how can the public get access to them? How long does the Minister expect it to take for all healthcare support workers to be registered, as the recent reports following the Mid Staffs inquiry suggested?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the Francis recommendations made no reference to voluntary registers for healthcare support workers. The broad position is that the PSA has not received any applications from organisations holding voluntary registers for healthcare support workers, and therefore no voluntary registers for healthcare support workers have been approved. As accredited registers are voluntary, I am afraid that the Government are not in a position to predict how long it will take for all healthcare support workers to be registered.