Who can say if a health professional is genuine?

Take time to ensure the person treating you or your famil is a real professional

Perhaps your child needs to see a speech and language therapist; maybe you are receiving radiotherapy; or perhaps you have made an appointment with a physiotherapist?

Whenever or wherever you see a health professional, you need reassurance about the person treating you. You need to know that they meet professional standards. You also need to know that someone will take action if things go wrong. That’s why the Health Professions Council (HPC) was created. The HPC, set up by law in 2002, keeps a register of everyone practising as one of the following 13 health professions, all of which must meet our standards of training, professional skills, behaviour and health. To protect patients, in the UK it is illegal to call yourself by the following ‘protected titles’ if you are not on the HPC Register.

Who do we register?

• Arts therapists
• Biomedical scientists
• Chiropodists and podiatrists
• Clinical scientists
• Dietitians
• Occupational therapists
• Operating department practitioners
• Orthoptists
• Paramedics
• Physiotherapists
• Prosthetists and orthotists
• Radiographers
• Speech and language therapists

Anyone practising using one of these titles who is not on our register is doing so illegally – and may not be meeting the standards we enforce to ensure patient safety and wellbeing.

Who do we not register?

We do not regulate doctors or nurses, but they are both regulated by similar organisations to the HPC. To find out more about who regulates other health professionals, please see our website.

You can check that your health professional is registered online at www.HPCheck.org

Find out more:

Check out the H PC R egister Before you attend an appointment, you can check that your health professional is registered with us – just go to our free online register www.HPCheck.org and search by their name or registration number. If you do not have access to the internet, you can ring us up and we will check the Register for you. Call 020 7582 0866 and speak to our registration department.

If things go wrong

If a health professional we register does not meet our standards, we can take action, which might include stopping them from practising. This means that if you are unhappy with treatment you are given, or worried about the behaviour or health of a health profession on our register, you can raise your concerns with us.

We look at every complaint we receive and decide what action should be taken. This may involve holding a hearing to get all the information we need to decide whether someone meets our standards still and is ‘fit to practise’.

If you want to make a complaint about a health professional registered with us, you can write to our Director of Fitness to Practise at the address at the end.

For more information

If you would like to know more, you can see the HPC website for more information or we publish a free leaflet, Who Can Say if a Health Professional is Genuine?, which contains information about the HPC.

To order a hard copy contact us at:
Health Professions Council
Park House
184 Kennington Park Road
London, SE11 4BU
Tel: 020 7582 0866
Fax: 020 7820 9684
E-mail: tellmemore@hpc-uk.orgweb
Website: www.hpc-uk.org
or check out your health professional at www.hpcheck.org

 

 

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