Government to review number of healthcare regulators

The government has ordered an external review of whether the number of professional healthcare regulators should be reduced to ‘simplify’ the system.

Newly published procurement documents reveal the Department of Health and Social Care has hired KPMG to make recommendations on whether the number of regulators “should be reduced and how this might be achieved”.

The scope of the review covers the eight independent healthcare regulators – which include the General Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care. It does not cover other healthcare regulators such as the Care Quality Commission, NHS England/Improvement, or the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. 

According to DHSC there is ongoing work to “reform the healthcare regulators’ legislation” which has created an “opportunity to consider” if the regulatory landscape could be “simplified to provide better public protection in a more efficient way”.

A spokeswoman for the DHSC told HSJ that “stakeholders” accepted that having nine separate professional regulatory bodies “can be confusing for the public”.

She said: “We know health regulators play an integral role in our commitment to making sure everyone has access to safe and effective healthcare, and we will continue to identify opportunities to improve the professional regulation system.” 

In 2014, Sir Robert Francis, who chaired the inquiry into failings at Mid Staffordshire Foundation Trust, said there were too many healthcare regulators in the NHS.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 5 January 2022