Consultation outcome

Public health specialists: regulation

• From: Department of Health and Social Care
• Published: 4 September 2014
• Last updated: 29 January 2015 — See all updates

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

This consultation has concluded

Read the full outcome

Government response: Health and Care Professions (Public Health Specialists and Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2015

PDF, 316 KB, 18 pages

Detail of outcome

The department received 168 responses from a range of organisations and from individuals.

Whilst there was broad support for the provisions of the Section 60 Order, there was a more mixed response to the questions on the identity of the regulator. However the majority of organisations supported the proposal to regulate through the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and we are going to proceed on that basis, with the following 2 changes:

• public health specialists who have retained registration with a regulator other than the HCPC should not be required to have dual registration
• the protected title is to be ‘public health specialist’

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Original consultation

Summary

Seeks views on how non-medical public health specialists will be regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

This consultation ran from
9:30am on 4 September 2014 to 11:45pm on 14 November 2014

Consultation description

Non-medical or dental public health specialists are going to be subject to statutory regulation by the HCPC instead of registering on the voluntary list currently held by the UK Public health Register (UKPHR). The draft Order contains the details of how this regulation will work in practice.

We are asking for views on the draft Order. In particular we are asking about:

• fitness to practice cases
• giving eligible public health specialists time to register with the HCPC
• protection of the title ‘public health specialist’
• impact of public health specialists from a non-medical or dental background being required to register with the HCPC

Update

People have raised concerns about the length of this consultation and the issues it addresses. In particular there are concerns about which organisation should be the regulator. So we have decided:

• to extend the consultation period by 4 weeks, so the consultation will run for 10 weeks and now close on 14th November
• to add 2 questions to the consultation

The new questions are:

Question 1. Do you agree with the Department’s decision that the HCPC should be the statutory regulator for public health specialists from backgrounds other than medicine or dentistry If not, who and why?

Question 2. Do you think that public health specialists should be regulated by another body? If so, who and why?

Documents

The health and care professions (public health specialists and miscellaneous amendments) order 2015: a consultation

PDF, 165 KB, 23 pages

The health and care professions (public health specialists and miscellaneous amendments) order 2015: draft

PDF, 83.4 KB, 9 pages

Published 4 September 2014
Last updated 29 January 2015 + show all updates

1. 29 January 2015

   government response to this consultation

2. 9 October 2014

   We have extended the date of the consultation and added 2 new questions about who should regulate public health professionals.

3. 4 September 2014

   First published.