State registration for the profession has been discussed in the pages of this Journal for over fifty years, and it was therefore with great pride and a sense of achievement that we were able to make known in September 2004 that the UK’s Health Professions Council had recommended to the Secretary of State for Health that clinical photographers should be state‐registered. The Editorial in that issue read, ‘presumably with effect from 2005’. So why the delay?
We are all aware of the way the UK Government works; how allocation of parliamentary time can be influenced by media and public pressures, and delays that can arise through the maze of bureaucracy. Ever since September 2004 work has continued in the background and indeed, the Institute is asked to provide information pertaining to the application on a regular basis. It would appear that over the last 12 months the main bottleneck has been the anticipated publication of two Governmental reports. Following the publication of The Shipman Inquiry: Fifth report in December 2004, which was highly critical of the General Medical Council and the broader arrangements for medical regulation, Lord Warner commissioned a review of medical regulation:
1. Good doctors, safer patients: proposals to strengthen the system to assure and improve the performance of doctors and to protect the safety of patients.
A report by the Chief Medical Officer which aims to create a new approach to promoting and assuring good medical practice and protecting patients from bad practice.
Shortly thereafter, the Department of Health elected to conduct a parallel review of the arrangements in place for the regulation of the other clinical professions in order to provide consistency of approach and in recognition of the blurring of traditional job roles in healthcare.
2. The regulation of the non‐medical healthcare professions: a review by the Department of Health.
This document flows from the work of a review of non‐medical professional regulation which was set up in March 2005 by the then Secretary of State, John Reid. It deals with the regulation of health care professionals other than doctors.
The latter document is the one which affects the application of clinical photographers. It is encouraging to note that in the report, Ministers have reached 25 decisions aimed at:
Strengthening regulation
Making the standards of regulation more consistent
Addressing a number of other issues including:
Revalidation
Fitness to practice
Protocols for local investigations
Regulation of new roles
Make up of regulator’s Councils
There now follows a period of consultation, Healthcare professional regulation: Public consultation on proposals for change, until early November. The Institute will be contributing to the consultation and hopefully, once Ministers have assessed the comments, our application will be back on track. As ever, further information can be gleaned through the IMI website (www.imi.org.uk), where can be found links to all those documents mentioned.