Regulation of Health and Social Care Professionals Consultation

placements and linking registration to the funding that is available for practice
placements, the Council has managed to ensure that student registration is at
very high levels – around 95%. 18 The Health Professions Council is considering
the most effective ways of ensuring student fitness to practise and whether the
student register will be maintained when the General Social Care Council is
abolished and its functions transferred to the Health Professions Council. 19
5.22 The General Medical Council has in the past maintained a register of medical
students which was discontinued for economic reasons, but has considered its
reintroduction at various times in recent years. 20 The Nursing and Midwifery
Council plans to introduce a student index. This is a database which is
maintained by the Council and will contain the data of every student who is
enrolled on an approved programme. The main purpose is to track information,
so that an education provider can check whether a student has been removed
from another programme of study due to concerns about their conduct. The
Council would not make fitness to practise decisions about students, which will
continue to be the responsibility of the education institutions. 21
5.23 A voluntary register is a register of persons who are not required by law to be on
that register in order to use a title and practise. But over time, registration might
become a requirement of employers and commissioners. None of the regulators
has express powers to set up voluntary registration schemes. However, the
Health and Social Care Bill 2011 proposes to give each regulator such powers in
relation to groups whose work supports or relates to the work of the profession
which they regulate. 22 This would include student registers. In order to introduce
any form of voluntary register, the regulator must first publish an assessment of
the impact of doing so and hold a public consultation. The regulators will also be
given powers to establish and maintain a voluntary register jointly with another
regulatory body. The Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence will have
powers to set standards for and to accredit any voluntary registers which are
introduced. 23 It is intended that these reforms will be implemented in 2012.
5.24 Some of the regulators have established what amount to informal lists of
practitioners within the general register. These can be accessed through the
search facilities in the regulators’ online registers. In some cases it is possible
through an online search to establish full lists of registered practitioners according
to gender, additional qualifications, specialisms, region and/or country. Of course
these lists are based on largely factual data which is common to all registrants
and available on the public register, as opposed to specialist lists based on
additional qualifications which are verified and accredited by the regulators.
18
General Social Care Council, Health and Social Care Bill – Second Reading Briefing
(2011) para 18.
19
Health Professions Council, Consultation on Student Fitness to Practise and Registration
(2011).
20
See, for example, General Medical Council, Medical Student Registration – the GMC’s
Position (2011).
21 See, http://www.nmc-uk.org/Get-involved/Consultations/Studentindexing/#whatisastudentindex
(last visited 15 February 2012).
22 The Health Professions Council is not subject to the restriction of only setting up a
voluntary register for a group linked to those which they regulate.
23 Health and Social Care Bill 2011, cls 225 and 227.
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