Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Answer to the hon. Member for Batley and Spen, of 4 March 2011, Official Report, column 664W, on health professions, whether the robust evidence-based cost-benefit risk analysis on the regulation of unregulated healthcare professionals has been undertaken by his Department; and whether he plans to publish that analysis and its conclusions.

The Government has set out its position on statutory regulation of healthcare professionals in the publication Enabling Excellence Command Paper - Autonomy and Accountability for Healthcare Workers, Social Workers and Social Care Workers, published February 2011. Statutory regulation will only be considered where there is a solid body of evidence demonstrating that there is a level of risk to the public which warrants the costs imposed by statutory regulation, and which cannot be addressed through assured voluntary registration. No cost-benefit risk analysis of the case for introducing compulsory statutory regulation of the health care scientist workforce is now planned by the Department at this time.

Modernising Scientific Careers has put in place standardised and accredited education and training programmes for the healthcare science work force that enables formalised regulation, whether voluntary or statutory. For those health care scientists not regulated by statute the Academy for Healthcare Science (AHCS) holds a voluntary ‘shadow' register and we understand that the AHCS intend to seek accreditation from the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care.