The Department of Health and Social Care (DH) launched a consultation in October 2017 to seek views on “reforming” healthcare regulation, including reducing the number of healthcare regulators from nine down to “possibly three or four”.

The DH suggested that regulator watchdog the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) be responsible for advising UK governments on which groups of healthcare professionals should be regulated, and how many regulatory bodies there should be.

In a report published in October 2016, the PSA said a single register for “high-street commercial premises”, such as pharmacists, dentists, optometrists, osteopaths, and chiropractors, would “support multidisciplinary working, individual and collective accountability, and team-based regulation”.

GPhC responds

In its response to the DH's consultation, the GPhC said today (January 24) that while it “strongly supports” the consultation’s objectives, it “rejects the notion of a high-street regulator”.

“It is not reflective of the many ways in which patients, the public and carers access healthcare services,” it added.

“For example, within the context of pharmacy, services will be increasingly delivered online (both as clinical consultations and the dispensing of medicines), and delivered directly to a patient’s home, as well as a variety of other settings not on the high street, such as care homes.”

However, GPhC chief executive Duncan Rudkin said “the GPhC keeps an open mind” about the question of reducing the number of regulatory bodies.

It is up to government to decide “the future number and configuration of regulators”, the GPhC added in its response.

Costs not realised

The GPhC suggested that one of the reasons for combining health regulators “is the financial efficiencies of mergers”.

But it said it is “unconvinced” by this reasoning, and suggested “more effective collaboration and cooperation between regulators” would achieve the desired cost savings instead.

Employers should not be on regulatory councils

As part of the consultation, the DH asked whether the “views of employers should be better reflected” in regulatory bodies.

In response, the GPhC said: “The interests of employers and those of the regulator and the regulated can sometimes not be aligned fully.”

“We do not agree that governing councils or boards should be mandated to be constituted to include employers,” the GPhC stated.

Read the GPhC’s response to the consultation in full here.

The consultation – Promoting professionalism, reforming regulation – closed yesterday (January 23), and the DH “will publish a response in due course”, it added.

In December, pharmacy lawyer David Reissner said there may be a case for the GPhC to be retained if other healthcare regulators are scrapped. Read more here.