Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals Consultation

11.5 However, it may be that the context of a commercial setting makes little
difference in practice to the regulatory task. In principle, standards should not be
lowered on the basis that, for example, the practitioner is based in a small
business setting, although there will be a need to take into account the burdens
that are placed on business. Moreover, the public sector faces commercial
pressures. Recent reforms aimed at ensuring market-based approaches in the
NHS in England have included the introduction of payment by results, devolution
of spending decisions to GP practices, expansion of the role of the independent
sector through nationally awarded contracts, creation of NHS foundation trusts
and the ending of the ability of Primary Care Trusts to provide their own
services. 1 The Health and Social Care Bill 2011 proposes that Monitor, currently
the licensing authority for foundation trusts, will be given wide-ranging powers to
impose licence conditions to prevent anti-competitive behaviour, to apply
sanctions to enforce competition law, and to refer malfunctioning markets to the
Competition Commission. 2
11.6 We are interested in views on whether regulation in a commercial context makes
a significant difference to the task of regulation. We also welcome views on the
suggestion that much of the existing legal structure for professional regulation is
designed primarily with the NHS in mind and its relationship to practitioners, who
operate in alternative settings, is not straightforward.
Question 11-1: To what extent does regulation in a commercial context make a
difference to how the regulators approach the task of professional regulation
and does the law provide adequately for professional regulation in a
commercial context?
PREMISES REGULATION
11.7 A small number of the regulators are given powers to regulate businesses as well
as individual practitioners. By far the most detailed legal framework for regulating
business is provided by the Pharmacy Order 2010, which gives the General
Pharmaceutical Council responsibility for the setting of standards for owners and
superintendents 3 carrying on retail pharmacy business at a registered pharmacy
as well as a range of powers in relation to inspection and enforcement. In effect,
the legislation establishes the General Pharmaceutical Council as a systems
regulator in addition to its role as a regulator of individual registrants. This makes
the Council unique amongst the other regulators.
The register
11.8 The legal framework for the business register is set out in the Medicines Act 1968
and the Pharmacy Order 2010. The General Pharmaceutical Council is required
to establish and maintain a register of premises at which the applicant is
conducting a retail pharmacy business under section 74A and 74J of the
1 See, for example, Civitas, The Impact of the NHS Market (2010) and Kings Fund,
Economic Regulation in Health Care: What Can We Learn from Other Regulators? (2011).
2 Health and Social Care Bill 2011, Part 3.
3 A superintendent pharmacist is a pharmacist who is a superintendent of a retail pharmacy
business owned by a body corporate. In hospitals this may be the chief pharmacist.
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