Overseeing regulators

Overseeing regulators

CHRE is responsible for overseeing the UK’s nine health professional regulatory bodies. Our oversight and scrutiny of the regulators is important for protecting patients and the public.

We review the performance of the regulators on an annual basis. We identify where things are being done well, and where improvements can be made. More information about our annual performance reviews is available.

Each regulator has a fitness to practise process for handling complaints made by patients, employers and others about health professionals. The most serious cases are referred to formal hearings in front of fitness to practise committees. We review all final decisions made by those fitness to practise committees. To learn more about our scrutiny of these decisions, information is available in the Final fitness to practise decisions section of our website.

We carry out an audit of the initial stages of regulators’ fitness to practise processes, looking at a sample of the decisions made by each regulator to close a case without referral to a formal hearing in front of a fitness to practise committee. We do this to ensure that the regulators’ decision-making processes are effective. We also assess whether the decisions taken protect the interests of patients and the public. More information is available in the Early FTP decisions section of our website.

From time to time, we have been asked to conduct special reviews. These may relate to regulators in other sectors, or outside the UK. More information about our special reviews is available.

Also, information about handling complaints and our role in this is available for review.

Guidance on reporting concerns (England)

We have produced guidance to help you to raise concerns about the healthcare that you have received. It is intended to help you to find the best place to take your concerns, and to help you understand the different roles of the organisations which could be involved in handling your complaint. We have also produced an Easy Read version.

The guidance can be found here.