My Lords, last week, when we debated the call for a separate list of properly qualified cosmetic surgeons, I received a briefing from the GMC about the forthcoming new system of professional regulation. I asked the Minister when this would be forthcoming, but I fear that he was not able to give me a clear answer. This matter has been hanging around for a very long time, but, when I scrutinised Clause 142, I saw that there was another problem: in future, the regulation of healthcare professionals can be made through secondary legislation—and whether this would be agreed by the negative or affirmative procedure is not clear.
The Explanatory Notes make clear that subsection (2)(e) —the powers to remove certain professions from regulation—
“includes the currently unenacted provisions concerning social care workers”.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, I want to ask the Minister about this, because many noble Lords, including me, have been asking that social care workers have the opportunity to obtain qualifications that would provide them with registration and a career path to better pay and conditions—but this sounds like the opposite to me. Perhaps the Minister can explain this and tell the House when the new regulatory system will be ready. The 2017 report of your Lordships’ House’s Select Committee on the long-term sustainability of the NHS said:
“The current regulatory landscape is not fit for purpose. In the short term, we urge the Government to bring forward legislation in this Parliament to modernise the system of regulation of health and social care professionals”—
I emphasise “social care professionals”—
“and place them under a single legal framework as envisaged by the 2014 draft Law Commission Bill.”
That was five years ago.
I have also received a briefing from the Health and Care Professions Council. It appears from this that the HCPC has a rather different view from the GMC: it wants the new professional regulation of health and care professionals to be collaborative and innovation focused. It believes that the current system is “siloed”, and it is looking for multiprofessional regulation, which, it believes, better reflects current working practices in the NHS. I am not an expert in this matter, so I express no opinion on that, but I am looking for some clarity from the Minister on which direction the new regulation system will take and the evidence that this will be better than before and contribute to better quality and
safety of care for patients. I would also like to know when it will happen, because Clause 142 appears to me to open the door to a fight between different regulators, which would not be helpful.