The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) has launched a consultation on its English language proficiency requirements for applicants using its international route for registration.
The HCPC said they “are proposing changes which will provide more ways for international applicants to evidence their proficiency in English whilst also ensuring our processes remain robust and fair.”
In particular, the proposals include:
- moving away from allowing international applicants with English as a first language to make a self-declaration as standalone evidence of English proficiency;
- replacing self-declaration with a list of majority English-speaking countries. To show proficiency, applicants could provide evidence to demonstrate they completed their primary qualification in a listed country, as long as the qualification was delivered in English.
- lengthening the HCPC’s list of approved English tests, but make that list exhaustive; and
- broadening the evidence the HCPC would accept by allowing international applicants to show that they have previously been regulated in a majority English-speaking country, or that they have relevant UK work experience supervised by a registered professional.
Writing on its website, the HCPC said:
“The proposals were developed following an internal review of our current processes, assessing informal feedback from stakeholders, and looking closely at the processes followed by other UK regulators to see where we can use similar approaches.”
The consultation will run from Monday 16 October 2023 to Friday 19 January 2024, and the final English language proficiency requirements will be published in 2024.
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