The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) is asking advanced and consultant practitioners to help identify risks which happen when registrants’ advance their practice.
Also, the HCPC wants views on how it should respond to ensure public protection, as well as supporting professionalism and good practice.
If you would like to get involved, register your interest and the HCPC will contact you in the next few months with details of how to respond, such as a survey or questionnaire, and online focus groups or interviews.
Background to the project
There is no regulation specific to the advanced level of practice or any advanced practice education programmes, nor is statutory registration of a practitioner’s standard level work necessary to work at advanced practice level.
Some of the professional regulators have produced guidance on the activities its registered professions are trained and competent to undertake. The HCPC does not collect information on scope of practice, nor does it prescribe the areas in which registrants work; instead, "registrants must ensure that they practice safely and effectively within their chosen scope of practice."
The HCPC are contacted by registrants asking for advice and support in relation to advanced practice scope of practice; quite often in relation to advanced clinical practice roles. Some registrants raise concerns about how to ensure they are acting within the scope of the Standards of Proficiency in their new roles.
There have been calls to consider introducing some form of additional regulation of advanced practitioners. The HCPC is undertaking this project to understand the range of views and experiences of our registrants, and those of other key stakeholders, before the HCPC’s Council makes a decision on how to proceed.