General Optical Council

Overview and background

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In February 2007, the Government published the White Paper 'Trust, Assurance & Safety - The Regulation of Health Professionals in the 21st Century' which set out a programme of reform to the United Kingdom's system for the regulation of health professionals.

Based on consultation of the two reviews of professional regulation 'Good doctors, safer patients' and 'The regulation of non-medical healthcare professions', the White Paper was complemented by 'Safeguarding Patients', the Government's response to the recommendations of the Fifth Report of the Shipman Inquiry and to the recommendations of the Ayling, Neale and Kerr/Haslam Inquiries.

Key principles

The White Paper identified a number of key principles that should underpin statutory professional regulation:

  • Its overriding interest should be the safety and quality of care that patients receive from health professionals.   
  • Professional regulation needs to sustain the confidence of both the public and the professions through demonstrable impartiality. Regulators need to be independent of Government, the professionals themselves, employers, educators and all the other interest groups involved in healthcare. 
  • Professional regulation should be as much about sustaining, improving and assuring the professional standards of the overwhelming majority of health professionals as it is about identifying and addressing poor practice or bad behaviour. 
  • Professional regulation should not create unnecessary burdens, but be proportionate to the risk it addresses and the benefits it brings. 
  • We need a system that: ensures the strength and integrity of health professionals within the UK; is sufficiently flexible to work effectively for the different health needs and healthcare approaches within and outwith the NHS in across the UK; and can adapt to future changes.

Key recommendations

Key recommendations from the White Paper include:

  • Councils will, as a minimum, have equal numbers of lay and professional members. Members will be independently appointed. Councils will become smaller, and more ‘board-like’.
  • All regulated professions will need to put in place arrangements for revalidation of their professional registration.This will involve periodically demonstrating their continued fitness to practise.
  • Fitness to Practise (FTP) panels will use the civil standard of proof rather than the criminal standard.
  • The Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) will have enhanced powers to scrutinise the regulators’ handling of FTP cases. CHRE will develop common protocols for local investigations.
  • The DH will develop a strategy to support and rehabilitate healthcare professionals experiencing health problems including substance misuse.
  • An independent adjudication body will be created initially for doctors. The body will recruit and train hearings panel members to sit on independent adjudication panels for other regulatory bodies. Other regulators may eventually choose to use the independent adjudication body for hearings.
  • The non-medical regulatory bodies should continue to be responsible for the educational standards of the professions they regulate.
  • CHRE will develop a single definition of ‘good character’ as a consistent basis for professional registration.
  • Regulators will consider the regulation of students and present proposals for this by January 2008. 
  • Government will establish a national advisory group on professional regulation. The Group will advise on the detailed implementation of the White Paper, the response to the Shipman Inquiry and other related inquiries.