HCPC revised Standards of Conduct

Today the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) publishes revised Standards of conduct, performance and ethics. These are the high level ethical standards which state in broad terms the behaviour expected of professionals regulated by the HCPC.

In order to make sure the standards continue to be fit for purpose and up to date we undertook a comprehensive review gathering feedback from employers, professional bodies, registrants and service users and carers.

A number of changes have been made, including.

  • A standard about registrants reporting and escalating concerns they might have about the safety and wellbeing of service users (standard 7). Registrants must, for example, ensure that the safety and wellbeing of service users always comes before any professional or other loyalties.
  • A standard about registrants being open and honest when things go wrong (standard 8). Registrants are expected to tell service users and carers when they become aware that something has gone wrong with the care, treatment or other services that they provide and to take action to put matters right wherever possible. They are also required to consider making an apology and to make sure that the service user receives an explanation of what happened.
  • There have also been more general changes made to the overall structure of the standards. These include the reduction in the number of standards from fourteen to ten, as well as an easier to follow format.

We plan to publish revised guidance on conduct and ethics for students based on the new standards in early summer 2016. The existing guidance will remain valid until the revised version is published.

The revised Standards of conduct, performance and ethics are effective from today. They will be posted to every HCPC registrant in the coming weeks. We are also producing a range of communications to highlight the revised Standards, including an event in Manchester on Tuesday 2 February 2016, which will be live-streamed, articles the HCPC In Focus newsletter.

For more information and to download the revised Standards of conduct, performance and ethics in a variety of formats visit our website.