Clause 23 - the council for the regulation of health care professionals
NHS Reform and Health Care Professions Bill
10:30 am
Mr John Hutton (Minister of State, Department of Health; Barrow and Furness, Labour)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) for giving me the opportunity to explain the matters that he raised.
We do not envisage the UK council having any role in relation to the qualification of architects, bankers and chartered accountants. It is a council for the regulation of health care professionals, and all its functions must be seen and exercised in that context. The bodies with which it should be able to discuss matters are the quality standard-setting bodies that have an impact on the delivery of health care and health care services, not those that deal with bankers, architects or accountants. Those are all worthy professions, and I have nothing against them, but they will not fall within the remit of the council. The Bill has been constructed to ensure that that does not happen.
The hon. Gentleman asked why we wanted the council to have a wider remit. In essence, the answer lies in the Kennedy report. Professor Kennedy saw it as part of the council's rationale that it should be able to work closely with other quality-related bodies. As I understand it, that is the reasoning behind new clause 2, which we will debate later.
The amendment would make it harder for the council to promote co-operation between, for example, a regulatory body and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education about the fitness of purpose of educational courses and qualifications in relation to health care professionals. It would make it harder for the General Medical Council and the specialist training authority or the joint committee on the post-graduate training of GPs or its planned successor, the medical education standards body, to have discussions and closer co-operation on the admission of doctors to the specialist register. It would make it harder for there to be discussions between the regulatory bodies and the General Social Care Council, or between the GMC, the General Dental Council and the national clinical assessment authority about the thresholds at which poor performance by a doctor or dentist could lead to referral to their regulatory body.
We regard this provision, as did Professor Kennedy, as a necessary adjunct to the proper discharge by the council of its new functions. It is not designed to extend its remit into professions that have nothing directly to do with health care professionals and their regulatory and educational requirements. As Professor Kennedy said, the overarching body that is established by clause 23 needs to have a broad co-ordinating function between the regulatory bodies and the bodies that are responsible for setting quality standards on education and training in relation to the relevant professional organisations.
This is not a back-door route to bringing within the remit of the council a whole range of professional organisations that have nothing to do with the regulation of health care professionals. It is a sensible measure that will ensure, as Professor Kennedy argued, that the council can do its job properly.