The Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) is now consulting on draft Standards for members of NHS boards and governing bodies in England. This follows a development period during which we carried out a review of existing standards, and spoke to a wide range of stakeholders.

The draft Standards cover three distinct areas:
• Personal behaviours
• Technical competence
• Business practices

They are intended to apply to members of boards and governing bodies in the NHS, meaning chief executives, chairs, non-executive and executive directors, and members of the governing bodies of Clinical Commissioning Groups.

The consultation will run for twelve weeks and will close on 10th April 2012. We would like to hear from anyone with an interest in this work, including members of the public, patients, their families and carers, NHS board members, managers, and staff at all levels, health professionals, and anyone with an interest in leadership and management in the NHS or other comparable environments.

Click here for more information on the Standards and the consultation.
 

Forward thinking

It is traditional at this time to look ahead to the coming year and to speculate what it may have in store for us. Certainly, discussion over the content of the Health and Social Care Bill will be replaced by discussion of its implementation. Many of the proposed changes will have implications on the oversight of health and care professionals, and so we offer our view on what we consider will be the big issues in 2012 for health and care professional regulation.

Assured voluntary registers
We expect the Professional Standards Authority to become operational in late 2012. In addition to an enhanced role in overseeing the statutory regulators, we will accredit voluntary registers of occupational groups which meet our standards. This represents the Government’s intention to use more proportionate forms of assurance, and is very much in keeping with our approach to Right-touch regulation. We are well into the development stage of this work, and look out for our consultation which will be issued in the New Year and will be available on this page.

The Law Commission
The Law Commission will launch a consultation in March on its proposals for the simplification of the law in relation to health professional regulation. The nine health professional regulators are currently governed through separate pieces of legislation, plus all of their associated amendments, rules and supplementary guidance. The Law Commission is examining those areas where the law could be improved, simplified and made more consistent for the benefit of patients, service users and professionals. Areas that will be under particular scrutiny will be fitness to practise and governance and accountability of the regulators.

Social care
There is a broad recognition that patients benefit from health and social care services that are more integrated. This integration will, to some extent, be reflected in the creation of the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). The HCPC will take on the regulation of all social workers in England, which is currently the responsibility of the General Social Care Council (GSCC). This will require an understanding of the unique challenges that face social workers, whilst still applying the standards of good practice that we have developed in our scrutiny of health regulators over the past eight years. We have been working with colleagues at the GSCC and the HPC to prepare for this role.

Fitness to practise
2011 saw four of the health professional regulators issue five different consultations on proposed changes to their fitness to practise procedures (you can find our response to these consultations here). Some of the proposals represented logical procedural changes designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the process. Others represented a more radical approach to considering fitness to practise cases. We consider it right that regulators look to continually improve their processes, and make the system more efficient, so long as it does not harm confidence in regulation. We will monitor developments in this area, and continue our scrutiny work in 2012 in order to provide this assurance to patients, professionals and the public.

There is also, of course, what we can only describe as the unknown. We would not have predicted the events at Mid Staffordshire or Winterbourne View, but it is arguably these shocking examples of poor care and neglect that can have the greatest impact on the sector. Some of the biggest changes in professional regulation happened in the wake of the inquiries into Bristol Royal Infirmary and the murders of Harold Shipman. So while we know the key issues that have been subject to scrutiny in the Mid Staffordshire Public Inquiry, we keenly await Robert Francis QC’s recommendations for the future of healthcare regulation.

John Illingworth, Policy Adviser
29.12.11
 

The HSJ100 is the annual list of individuals who will wield the greatest influence in health policy and the NHS in the next 12 months. We are very pleased to announce that Harry Cayton was yesterday named in the list.

HSJ said: ‘A question regularly asked at Richmond House is “What does Harry think?” As well as keeping professional regulators in check, Mr Cayton is an expert on probity and safety – he is leading work on management regulation, for example. His organisation will get extra responsibilities and independence under the Health Bill’.

2012 is expected to be a year of transition and uncertainty for health and care services in England, where strong control and influence will need to be exercised. The HSJ100 list is thought to be an indicative guide to those who will exert the strongest influences in 2012.

For further information, see: http://www.hsj.co.uk/home/hsj-100/hsj100-in-a-time-of-transition-power-lies-in-david-nicholsons-iron-grip/5038925.article