At the heart of everything we do is one simple purpose...

Statistics help to qualify and quantify what we do and show our impact. It is important to remember, however, that behind every statistic lies a human story.

We have produced a short report showing how our work contributes to protecting the public, drawing upon the statistics we use in our annual reports, for updates to our Board, and on our website. However, we did not just want to use these statistics – we wanted to take a closer look at the stories that sit behind them – tell their story and our part in it. Our statistics involve stories of patients, their families, the health and care professionals subject to regulation, and staff within the regulators trying to deliver effective regulation. Because of the field we work in, these stories are complicated and can be distressing – they can involve, for example, a family losing a loved-one, or a health professional losing their career.

In this report, we have taken data from the last three years for each of our main areas of work and looked at one of the cases that lie behind the data. These areas are:

• reviewing the regulators (both their performance as part of our annual reviews as well as our scrutiny of their final fitness to practise decisions);
• accrediting voluntary registers of health or care practitioners; and
• conducting and commissioning research.

You can read each of the case studies – or the full report – which sets out our work in context as well as looking at what the future might hold.

As we look forward to 2020 and beyond, the Professional Standards Authority remains as committed as ever to improving regulation to protect the public. 

The story behind the statistics – using our key stats to tell the story of our work and how it contributes to protecting the public

A dental nurse who turned a blind eye to unhygienic practices and put her patients at risk – our work reviewing regulators' final fitness to practise decisions

Sharing feedback to highlight concerns about regulators creating barriers to vulnerable people raising potentially serious concerns

From unmet to met – how the General Optical Council improved its performance to ensure that anybody can raise a concern about its registrants – our work reviewing the regulators’ performance

How the Registration Council of Clinical Physiologists took action to achieve accreditation leading to raised standards and improved public protection – our work accrediting registers

Does crossing sexual boundaries with colleagues put patients at risk? Our policy and research work