Healthcare regulation in UK

Health professional regulation

Healthcare regulation

Healthcare across the UK is regulated by a range of different organisations working in a number of different ways. Some regulators check the quality and safety of services – for example the Care Quality Commission in England or the Regulation and Quality Improvement Agency in Northern Ireland. Others work on the quality and safety of medicines and medical devices – for example the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

We oversee the organisations that regulate health professionals across the UK. The nine health professional regulatory bodies were set up to protect and promote the safety of the public.

They do this by

• Setting the standards of behaviour, competence and education that health professionals must meet
• Dealing with concerns from patients, the public and others about health professionals who are unfit to practise because of poor health, misconduct or poor performance
• Keeping registers of health professionals who are fit to practise in the UK.
• The regulators can remove professionals from their registers and prevent them from practising if they consider this to be in the best interests of the public.