Society of Homeopaths responds to plans for shake-up of health regulation

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    [ID] => 13571
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    [post_date] => 2018-01-31 10:00:10
    [post_date_gmt] => 2018-01-31 09:00:10
    [post_content] => The Society of Homeopaths has responded to a national consultation on a proposed shake-up in the way healthcare professionals, including homeopaths, are regulated.

The plan would affect the Society’s accrediting body, the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA), which ensures that the society’s register of practitioners is operated professionally.

The overarching aim is to improve the regulation system – parts of which are more than 150 years old – to increase public trust, reduce duplication of services, boost professional development and make the system more flexible so that it can respond speedily to changes in the law affecting healthcare.

One key option put forward is to reduce the number of regulators operating across the healthcare sector from the existing nine to three or four to help cut costs. Savings could be passed on to the organisations overseen by regulatory bodies ‘as fee reductions or . . . to support professionalism’, the consultation document, Promoting Professionalism, Reforming Regulation, published by the Department for Health and Social Care suggests.

Responses were invited to these and a number of other areas including:

 	
Whether the PSA should take on the role of advising the UK governments on which groups of healthcare professionals should be regulated
 	
Changes to regulatory bodies’ powers
 	
Whether regulators should have a role in supporting and developing professionalism
 	
Collaboration, including data-sharing, between regulators

In its response, the Society gave a cautious welcome to the plans to update the system but stressed that the potential savings made as a result of consolidating the different bodies could vary widely from one organisation to another.

“In our case, we would like to support professionalism but we don’t know what the economic impact on the organisation will be,” said Ros Sturley, the Society’s Professional Standards Manager.

She also stressed that the quantity of bodies is not the issue.

“The number of regulatory bodies should be based on need, patient protection and whether they are fit for purpose, not on an arbitrary number which appears to be more efficient,” she said, adding that the consultation seemed mainly to be targeted at bigger regulatory bodies than the PSA, such as the General Medical Council (GMC).

The PSA itself has welcomed the consultation.

“Regulation in its current state is holding back innovation and is out of step with modern healthcare needs and workforce demands,” it said. “We have been calling for reform for a long time, so we welcomed the opportunity to respond to this government consultation.”

The consultation has now closed and response is expected from the government later this year. The Society's response may be located in the members area of the website under support/campaigns.
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The Society of Homeopaths has responded to a national consultation on a proposed shake-up in the way healthcare professionals, including homeopaths, are regulated.

The plan would affect the Society’s accrediting body, the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA), which ensures that the society’s register of practitioners is operated professionally.

The overarching aim is to improve the regulation system – parts of which are more than 150 years old – to increase public trust, reduce duplication of services, boost professional development and make the system more flexible so that it can respond speedily to changes in the law affecting healthcare.

One key option put forward is to reduce the number of regulators operating across the healthcare sector from the existing nine to three or four to help cut costs. Savings could be passed on to the organisations overseen by regulatory bodies ‘as fee reductions or . . . to support professionalism’, the consultation document, Promoting Professionalism, Reforming Regulation, published by the Department for Health and Social Care suggests.

Responses were invited to these and a number of other areas including:

• Whether the PSA should take on the role of advising the UK governments on which groups of healthcare professionals should be regulated
• Changes to regulatory bodies’ powers
• Whether regulators should have a role in supporting and developing professionalism
• Collaboration, including data-sharing, between regulators

In its response, the Society gave a cautious welcome to the plans to update the system but stressed that the potential savings made as a result of consolidating the different bodies could vary widely from one organisation to another.

“In our case, we would like to support professionalism but we don’t know what the economic impact on the organisation will be,” said Ros Sturley, the Society’s Professional Standards Manager.

She also stressed that the quantity of bodies is not the issue.

“The number of regulatory bodies should be based on need, patient protection and whether they are fit for purpose, not on an arbitrary number which appears to be more efficient,” she said, adding that the consultation seemed mainly to be targeted at bigger regulatory bodies than the PSA, such as the General Medical Council (GMC).

The PSA itself has welcomed the consultation.

“Regulation in its current state is holding back innovation and is out of step with modern healthcare needs and workforce demands,” it said. “We have been calling for reform for a long time, so we welcomed the opportunity to respond to this government consultation.”

The consultation has now closed and response is expected from the government later this year. The Society’s response may be located in the members area of the website under support/campaigns.