The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) has published a report highlighting some of the biggest challenges affecting the quality and safety of health and social care across the UK.
The report examines a selection of key issues from the perspective of professional regulation, across four key themes:
• tackling inequalities
• regulating for new risks
• facing up to the workforce crisis
• accountability, fear and public safety.
The PSA said on its website:
With the publication of this report, we are hoping to start a conversation to look at how we can tackle the challenges and we put forward our recommendations to ensure safer care for all.
The issues we have identified in our report lead to one, overarching conclusion – that the UK needs a more robust approach to ensuring that health and social care are safer for everyone, overseen by people focused on this aim, with the tools to realise it.
Fitness to Practise Fear
The report acknowledged that aspects of professional regulation will always be feared to an extent, particularly fitness to practise but:
“there are things regulators can do to alleviate this. Professionals’ fear of being unfairly blamed is partly driven by misunderstandings about the role of the regulators, so action taken by regulators needs to be fair and transparent, with clear explanations of how and why decisions are taken.
“Employers also have a key role in addressing issues locally, communicating the regulator’s expectations and referring members of staff where there are concerns.”
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