Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals Consultation

2.87 But the retention of section 60 orders means that the Privy Council would retain a
role in the new legal structure, albeit a minor role in advising Her Majesty before
such orders are made. As set out above, we propose to establish a legal scheme
where Government responsibility is transparent, and the role of the Privy Council
is removed. It is also not necessary for the new statute to include a section 60
order power. It could be left to the Secretary of State to amend the primary
legislation by introducing a new Act of Parliament in order to, for example, add to
the number of regulators. The disadvantage would be the increased time and
expense for the introduction of such reforms.
2.88 An alternative option would be to give the Secretary of State powers to issue
regulations on certain matters, such as the establishment, abolition or merger of
regulatory bodies and the exercise of default powers. These decisions could be
made subject to certain criteria being satisfied – for example, that any reforms
are necessary in order to protect the public – as well as Parliamentary approval.
On balance, we prefer this option since it would establish greater transparency
and introduce new bespoke safeguards for individual decisions. Precise
examples of this regulation-making powers are discussed in the rest of this Part.
2.89 We therefore provisionally propose that the section 60 order making power
should be repealed. Instead regulators will be given broad powers to update their
legal framework. In areas where political decisions need to be made and
Government resources allocated, we propose that the Act should allocate
responsibility clearly to the Government by introducing a series of regulationmaking
powers.
Provisional Proposal 2-14: The order making power in section 60 of the Health
Act 1999 should be repealed and instead the Government should be given
regulation-making powers on certain issues.
THE NUMBER OF REGULATORS AND REGULATED PROFESSIONS
2.90 There are currently 10 health and social care professional regulators. That
number has remained static since the establishment of the Health Professions
Council in 2001. The number of regulators will be reduced to nine when the
General Social Care Council’s functions are transferred to the Health Professions
Council. It is possible that the number of regulators will change again in the future
either as a result of the mergers of existing regulators, the establishment of new
regulatory bodies, or even bringing groups out of regulation.
2.91 As set out in table 2 above, there are currently 32 registered health and social
care professions in the UK. This number will increase to 33 with the introduction
of registration for practitioners of herbal medicine, which includes medical
herbalists, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners and other practitioners who
use unlicensed herbs in their practice. These practitioners will fall within the remit
of the Health Professions Council. 50 It is possible that the number of regulated
professions could reduce in the future as a result of the merger of existing
professions or bringing groups out of regulation, or increase if new professional
groups are brought within the regulatory framework.
50 As above, para 4.113.
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