Maximising the contribution of regulatory bodies' registers to public protection

Maximising the contribution of regulatory bodies' registers to public protection

Health professional regulators hold registers of practitioners who are entitled to practise within a given profession. As well as being a statutory duty, the registers are a valuable tool for public protection, enabling members of the public and employers to identify professionals who are qualified and fit to practise.

This project arose from our 2007/08 performance review, which highlighted variation in the level of detail provided by the regulators’ online registers and the way the information is presented to the public.

We have now completed our final report, following consultation with the public, stakeholders and the regulators, and an online research study. This research confirmed our understanding that if a member of the public is going to the trouble of checking a regulator’s register, this should be straightforward and the information should be useful.

We found that some of the regulators do not provide access through their online registers to information about health professionals currently prevented from practising because of fitness to practise sanctions. Cases of struck off individuals continuing to provide services to the public under different, unregulated titles, illustrate the value of publishing past fitness to practise sanctions long after the determination has been issued.

We have made the following recommendations:

• Regulators should provide information about all current fitness to practise sanctions on the online register
   
• Regulators should provide information about health professionals who have been struck off on their online register for at least 5 years
   
• Regulators who do not currently publish fitness to practise histories should begin to take a proportionate approach to making this information available against a register entry
   
• Regulators’ online registers should share common features to make them credible, useful and accessible. These include:
  o Clear signposting from the regulator’s homepage
  o List of current and previous fitness to practise sanctions
  o Ease of navigation to greater levels of detail where available
  o An indication of location of practice
  o A glossary of terms
  o The absence of material that could compromise the credibility of
     the data, such as advertising.