Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to act on the recommendations made by the Health and Care Professions Council to extend statutory regulation to new groups of healthcare professionals.

The Health and Care Professions Council made 11 recommendations for professional groups to be brought within the framework for statutory regulation.

Operating Department Practitioners have been regulated. The Modernising Scientific Careers programme provides healthcare scientists in scope of the recommendations with standardised and accredited education and training that enables formalised regulation, whether voluntary or statutory.

Accredited voluntary registration by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) provides an appropriate and proportionate response to risks presented by many groups to patient safety. It is open to groups whose recommendations have not been progressed to applying to the PSA.