Professional Standards Authority Annual Report and Accounts 2023/24

We have published our annual report and accounts for 2023/24 .

We are pleased to introduce this annual report for 2023/24. This year we have continued our work to protect patients, service users and the public by improving the regulation and registration of health and social care professionals. We support high standards in regulation and registration through our performance review, assessments of fitness to practise cases (section 29), the Accredited Registers programme, policy and communications functions. We have maintained our commitment to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and to supporting the reform of professional regulation. We also delivered a number of commitments arising from our Safer care for all report published in September 2022.

We oversee the work of 10 statutory bodies that regulate health and social care professionals in the UK. In undertaking our oversight role, we strive to strike a proper balance between scrutiny on the one hand, and advice and support on the other. During 2023/24 we embedded the changes made to our performance review processes in 2022/23 to ensure they continue to be proportionate and that they contribute to improvements in professional regulation. All reports were published within three months of the end of the performance review period. Towards the end of 2023/24 we introduced new requirements for the regulators for our EDI Standard. We have increased our expectations of what regulators should be doing to promote EDI and will be looking carefully at performance against this Standard in 2024/25.

In our scrutiny reviews of regulators’ performance over the year, we have found that they have generally performed well against the standards we set. Across all the regulators an average of 94% of the standards were met and four of the regulators met all the standards. Six of the regulators did not meet Standard 15 of the Standards of Good Regulation. This is a fitness to practise standard and the primary reason for it not being met is that it is taking too long to complete cases. This is not good for regulators, registrants, and patients and service users. We will be monitoring this situation very closely in 2024/25.

In reviewing regulators’ decisions about whether individuals on their registers are fit to practise, we find that the bulk of cases are managed to a high standard, with findings and sanctions that protect the public appropriately. However, every decision counts and there is room for further improvement. During 2023/24, 24 appeals under our section 29 powers were completed. All but one of these appeals were either upheld or settled. One appeal was dismissed – the judge did not agree with our view that the decision by the regulator was insufficient to protect the public.

The Accredited Registers programme has an important part to play now and in future, providing assurance for the public in relation to unregulated health and social care sectors. The programme now covers approximately 130,000 practitioners across 28 registers. In February 2024 we held a seminar for the Accredited Registers, which included sessions on complaints resolution, fitness to practise research, mental health support and advertising of healthcare services. We will be introducing an EDI standard for the registers in early 2024/25 and reviewing the position on safeguarding checks in the light of the government review of the disclosure and barring regime.

Our Safer care for all report, published in September 2022, highlighted the key challenges for patient safety in the UK and the role of professional regulation in addressing these challenges. In 2023/24 we worked with regulators, Accredited Registers, stakeholders in health and social care, patients, service users and governments to take forward the recommendations in the report to improve the safety and quality of care for all. This work included a symposium on collaboration, a joint seminar with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman on tackling barriers to complaints, and a research conference on the Safer care for all themes in November 2023.

Our remit covers all four countries of the UK. As part of our commitment to working effectively with the respective governments, and to provide opportunities for stakeholder engagement, we hold Board meetings and seminars across the four nations of the UK on a revolving basis. Board meetings and stakeholder events were held in May and September 2023 in Northern Ireland and Scotland respectively. We also held a joint seminar with the Welsh Government in March 2024 and plan to hold our Board meeting in July 2024 in Cymru/Wales.

To conclude, it has been a successful and productive year for the Professional Standards Authority. As we look forward to 2024/25 and beyond, we remain as committed as ever to improving regulation and registration to protect the public.