Responding to the Department of Health and Social Care’s new bureaucracy busting strategy, Christine Elliott, Chair of the Health and Care Professions Council, said:
“We welcome the DHSC’s new bureaucracy busting strategy, and the Secretary of State’s continued commitment to reducing the burden of inefficient red tape on health and care professionals.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated what can be achieved, when regulators are able to work flexibly and respond to the immediate demands on health and care services. During the pandemic, the HCPC created two temporary Registers, enabling students and former Registrants to practise on a temporary basis, boosting the capacity of health and care services. A number of our Registrants were also able to take on different health and care service roles due, in part, to their status as regulated professionals. This flexible, responsive attitude should be at the heart of health and care regulation.
“We were pleased to see that the strategy recognises the need for streamlining Fitness to Practise regulation. We have, despite COVID-19, accelerated our own improvements in this area over the last year through our FtP improvement programme, and though there is more to do to realise the benefits, being an effective regulator would be greatly assisted by modernisation. We are hopeful that FtP reform's inclusion in this strategy will lead to even swifter case resolution, and less strain on our registrants, members of the public and the healthcare system.
“At the HCPC, we are proud of the work all our Registrants do on a daily basis, from paramedics to podiatrists, radiographers to biomedical scientists. The removal of some of the bureaucracy in the health and care sector will enable these key workers to do their jobs more efficiently and provide an even better service to the public. We hope that the DHSC will continue to prioritise this, as we move beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.”