Applying for HCPC registration?

Registration Manager Dushyan Ashton highlights what you need to do to avoid having your application returned as incomplete.

Proud excited faces, mortar boards scattered against a sky-blue background, and groups of students posing in smart black gowns. The numerous photos posted on social media by newly qualified students - now graduating after successfully completing one of our approved programmes - are a happy reminder that graduation season is in full swing.

All those students completing an approved education and training programme are required to join our Register before they can practise using one of our legally protected titles.

During this current period our Registration Department will receive lots of new applications. We aim to process applications within ten working days of receipt of a complete application. This ensures that newly qualified professionals are added to our online Register as soon as possible.

It is important to make sure that your application is complete before submitting it to us. Common mistakes include failing to provide the appropriate documentation, or not including a fee with the application form. Incomplete applications will be returned for resubmission, which could potentially delay your entry to the HCPC Register.

To avoid this happening follow our checklist:

• Enclose two certified copies of documents to confirm your identity; one document should contain your photograph, one should provide your current address.
• All signatures must be original and dated within the last six months.
  
• Provide certified proof of any name changes; e.g. a certified photocopy of a relevant name change document such as a marriage certificate or deed poll.
• A fee must be submitted with your application form.  
• If you answered ‘yes’ to any question in section 3 (character and health self- declarations / vetting and barring schemes), you must provide additional information.

For further information about applying to join the HCPC Register
visit www.hcpc-uk.org/apply

Top 10 tips for completing your CPD profile

Have you been selected for CPD audit? Here’s ten top tips for completing your profile.

1. Include a dated list of your professional development activities within the audit period - the last two years of registration. If you have any gaps of three months or more, they will need to be explained.

2. Don’t just describe your day-to-day work. Choose a range of different activities you have undertaken over the past two years (between four and six in total) and describe what you learned from each.

3. Provide good evidence for each of the activities. Reflective logs, case studies, presentations, certificates and feedback from your service users would all be relevant.

4. Remember, it is about quality not quantity - choose evidence which shows how you think you have met the standards.

5. Ensure confidentiality when including your evidence - make sure that none of your evidence or your statement includes references to named individuals.

6. Make sure that the evidence you send will back up the statements made in your profile. It should show that you have undertaken the activities you have referred to, and should also show how they have improved the quality of your work and benefited service users.

7. Be concise, but provide sufficient detail on how your learning activities had an impact on your service, and be clear about how each standard has been met.

8. Keep a personal log of your continuing professional development, so that if you move jobs or your circumstances change you will still have access to it.

9. Don’t forget that the summary of your practice history should help to show the assessors how your development activities are linked to your work.

10. The council’s approach to assessing professional development focuses on the outcome of your activities - how they have benefited you and your service users, not how many hours or points you have. It’s up to you, along with your manager, to think about what you need to do to keep up to date in your area of practice.

For more information and advice for completing your CPD profile, visit
www.hcpc-uk.org/registrants/cpd.
 

 

 

 

Putting public protection in the spotlight

We are on the road in Gloucestershire today to officially re-launch our ‘Older, wiser …be sure’ campaign with an exclusive screening of our new film at the National Care Forum’s managers’ conference.

The ‘Be Sure’ campaign is aimed at care home managers, carers and older service users, urging them to check that their health and care professional is registered and to raise any concerns about their conduct or competence. The campaign draws on research we have done that shows most older people do not check whether the person treating them or the person they are caring for is registered.

Checking that a health and care professional is registered with us is vital because it is the only way you will know if the professional meets our national standards for training, skills and behaviour. It is also important because it offers you protection if the professional fails to meet these standards, as we can take action against registered professionals.

In order to convey this message to a wide audience in an engaging and thought-provoking way, we chose to refresh the campaign with a dramatic film that shows what can happen when things go wrong.

The film depicts three older service users, ‘Doris’, ‘Rasheed’ and ‘Rose’, who receive inadequate treatment from both registered professionals and unregistered practitioners. Meanwhile ‘David’, a stretched care home manager, learns how quick and easy it is to check the register when a professional comes to see one of his residents.

Making the film was a great learning experience for our team. We carefully researched the chosen scenarios, which are partly based on actual fitness to practise cases. To make the film as accurate and realistic as possible, we shot on location at a care home, in a hospital and at a house. We also had HCPC registrant partners involved to coach the actors on good and bad practise for their respective professions. This was a wonderful opportunity for us to interact with our partners and learn more about their roles on a day-to-day basis.

It was also a good opportunity to see professional filmmakers at work and to appreciate how much time and effort goes into getting that perfect scene. There were some great acting and make-up artist skills – keep an eye out in the film for a very realistic-looking foot sore!

I hope the work that everyone put into making the film as realistic as possible will really get people thinking about the importance of checking that their health and care professional is registered and remind them that they have recourse if things go wrong.

If you are not joining us in Gloucestershire today, you can watch the film below. We will also be showing a shorter version of the film at the Care Show in Birmingham next month, so do stop by and say hello if you will be attending.




Ebony Gayle
Media & Public Relations Manager, HCPC

Notes:

Check the register online at www.checkthregister.org

Study amongst Older People aged 70+, Ipsos MORI Research Institute for the Health Professions Council, 2008.

A short version of the film is available at: youtu.be/PO8MuHeVaYY

To find out about other regulated professions see : www.hcpc-uk.org/aboutregistration/regulators

Cab drivers and care workers

The recent King’s Fund conference on the Francis Report has generated considerable debate and discussion, not least because Robert Francis was present to make some powerful observations on the challenges that lie ahead.

One of the areas that was addressed by many of the speakers was around future plans for healthcare support workers. During one of the sessions, we heard about a new approach to recruitment and retention of these staff. Lucy Connolly, Assistant Chief Nurse at York NHS Trust, described how the Trust had moved from a competency based approach in the recruitment of support workers to a values based approach. This includes a person specification with a primary emphasis on values, mandatory open events, which include talks from support workers and a DVD of interviews with support workers talking candidly about the role, and interviews with an emphasis on values and compassion. Once appointed, all support workers undergo a two-week induction, again with an emphasis on values and personal responsibilities. There is a year-long period of preceptorship with a competency assessment, and a buddy scheme to provide more informal support and mentoring. The new approach has had a measurable impact on sickness levels and staff turnover. There has been less reliance on temporary staff and a reduction in recruitment costs. Perhaps most importantly, there has been improvement in care indicators from patients.

This approach reinforced messages from other speakers at the conference about the need to make radical changes in the culture of the NHS. Some of this starts with the recruitment of staff. Francis himself placed great emphasis on the need to change values and behaviour and to reward good practice. However, he also very strongly supported the need for sanctions against those who do not deliver, be they boards, managers or staff. There are a minority of workers in every health and care setting who do not comply. The emphasis on values and behaviour, and employer-led initiatives like the one described by Lucy Connolly, are absolutely vital if we are to see change. But this will not stop those who fail patients, are asked to leave, and move on to another care setting.

One of the challenges of delivering high quality care is finding, training and retaining high quality staff, be they doctors, nurses, or support workers. Currently, there is no registration process in England for adult social care workers or for healthcare support workers. We have been exploring the options for how adult social care workers in England might best be regulated. Our favoured option is a statutory code of conduct that is enforceable. This is an alternative to statutory regulation but is nevertheless one that can hold to account the small minority of care workers who provide unacceptable care. We introduced a similar system for social work students last year, which is working well. It is already used in the UK to regulate estate agents. In New South Wales, Australia, it is used to regulate all those health workers who are currently not on a statutory register.

Last week, Robert Francis said: "It's extraordinary that the cab driver that takes you to the hospital has more regulation that the healthcare assistant who wipes the bottom of your grandmother. This is not acceptable. We need to disqualify people who fail our patients." I can only agree.

Anna van der Gaag
Chair, Health and Care Professions Council