As part of its work on preceptorship, the HCPC has today published analysis of the retention data for the 15 professions it regulates across the United Kingdom.*
This analysis can be used by employers, professional bodies and others responsible for workforce planning to better understand retention rates amongst the health and care professions regulated by the HCPC.
Workforce planning is crucial for the health and care sector. Workforce pressures can exacerbate waiting times, create backlogs and can compromise patient safety. Recruitment is part of the answer, but retaining good staff is vital too, and has perhaps never been more important.
Key findings from the report include:
- Over 94% of new HCPC registrants stay registered for longer than four years.
- Deregistration rates varied widely between professions. While just 1.8% of paramedics (1 in 56) deregister in less than four years, the figure stands at 12.8% (1 in 8) for prosthetists/orthotists.
- There is a strong link between the size of the profession and the length of a professional’s registration. Members of smaller professions are more likely to leave our Register within four years.
- Retention rates varied between different nationalities, with registrants from the UK more likely to stay registered for longer than four years (although this analysis is on applications to join the register through UK training routes, future analyses will cover those who initially trained outside of the UK).
The quality of preceptorship support has been proven to improve retention levels.** High quality preceptorship programmes support health and care professionals to develop and maintain confident, safe and effective practice throughout their careers.
The analysis in this report will support the HCPC’s programme of work to understand how preceptorship can be designed to best support the professions we regulate. We are collaborating with Health Education England (HEE) to engage stakeholders across the 4 UK nations and 15 professions to build on existing examples of good practice in preceptorship.
We have recently consulted on a set of evidence-led principles for Foundation Preceptorship that aim to promote excellence and standardisation in the quality of preceptorship programmes available. We will be publishing the final principles in early 2023.
Andrew Smith, Interim Deputy CEO of the HCPC, said:
“This report is an important step in the HCPC’s programme of work to understand how preceptorship can best be designed to support the professions we regulate."
"Promoting high quality professional practice as a compassionate regulator is a core part of our Corporate Strategy."
“We hope this report provides useful information for employers, professional bodies, education institutions and others, to support their workforce planning programmes.”
* The analysis looked at first registrations between 2013-2018.
** ‘Good preceptorship positively impacts staff recruitment and retention’ | Nursing Times
