Health Services: Standards

(asked on 12th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that regulatory bodies for healthcare professionals issue guidance on (a) the duty of staff to report (i) patient safety and (ii) other concerns about clinical services and (b) the mechanism for reporting those concerns.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 24th February 2020

In March 2015, the Secretary of State for Health asked Sir Bruce Keogh to review the professional codes of doctors and nurses, and to ensure that the right incentives are in place to prevent health care professionals from covering up mistakes. On 16 July 2015, Sir Bruce confirmed that the professional codes of conduct for doctors and nurses are both fit for purpose.

All professional regulators are overseen by the Professional Standards Authority for health and social care (PSA). The PSA annually reviews each professional regulator’s performance against the following four core functions: guidance and standards; education and training; registration; and fitness to practice.

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