Press Release

Health Professions Council launches first approvals and monitoring annual report

1 October 2007

The Health Professions Council (HPC) has launched its first approvals and monitoring annual report. The report covers the period 1 September 2005 to 31 August 2006, or the ‘2005-2006 academic year’ as it is more commonly known.

The 2005-2006 academic year has been a busy and productive year for the HPC’s Education – Approvals and Monitoring Department. The HPC launched the new annual monitoring and major/minor change processes in spring 2006 and have carried out a lot of work to embed the approval process (now in its second year of operation). The department has produced publications and held a series of presentations to ensure increased accessibility to the HPC’s processes.

This report aims to provide an insight into the HPC’s work in approving and monitoring programmes offered by UK education providers, which provide students with eligibility to register with the HPC.  It provides information about the number and types of approval visits, the outcome of these visits, the number and type of monitoring submissions, and the outcome of this monitoring.

Eileen Thornton, Chair of the Education and Training Committee said...”We recognise that this introductory report is limited in its scope, but are hopeful that we will be able to identify and analyse trends in future annual reports as our experiences and evidence base grows.  

“This year has seen a large amount of work in the area of approvals and monitoring, this year, during the 59 visits, 72 programmes were considered. These visits have helped to ensure new registrants meet the required standards to work safely and effectively. This fundamentally contributes to the HPC’s primary function of protecting the public.

“We hope that you find this report interesting and useful in understanding more about the work of the Health Professions Council.”

The Standards of education and training are standards that an educational programme must meet in order to be approved by the HPC. These generic standards ensure that anybody who completes an approved programme meets the Standards of proficiency and is therefore eligible for admission to the Register.  The standards cover the following areas:

1. the level of qualification for entry to the Register;
2. programme admissions;
3. programme management and resources;
4. curriculum;
5. practice placements; and
6. assessment.

The work that the HPC carries out is paid for by fees from registrants. There is no fee charged to education providers for an approval visit or for monitoring submission. The HPC have developed publications and protocols, held presentations, and always endeavour to make their processes as open and transparent as possible.