A professional register is a list of individuals who have demonstrated the relevant skills and competencies to practise a certain profession. These could be demonstrated through completing certain training and/or qualifications as well as through relevant experience. The register would be independently quality assured by a regulatory or professional body and would be publicly available.
NHS managers would be required to meet a set of agreed professional standards in order to join the register.
With a voluntary scheme, managers would not be legally required to join the register to practise their profession. However, a voluntary scheme can become mandatory in practice if employers generally prefer to appoint people who are on the register.
A voluntary register would likely require some form of revalidation – a periodic re-assessment of registrants to make sure they still to meet the requirements for registration. Individuals could be struck off the register if they fail to meet the professional standards.
The initial set up of a voluntary register would probably be taxpayer funded, with registrants then required to pay annual fees to maintain their registrations.
Full statutory regulation operates in a similar way to a voluntary register, but joining the register is a legal obligation for anyone practising the profession.
NHS managers would have to register with a regulatory body and hold an approved set of qualifications to show they are fit to practise their profession. This would put managers within a similar regulatory system as doctors and nurses.
Formal entry qualifications for NHS management and courses to deliver them would have to be devised. Statutory regulation would also require periodic revalidation. Managers on the statutory register could be struck off if they fail to meet the professional standards, meaning they would be unable to hold a management job in the NHS until they have rejoined.
As with the voluntary scheme, the taxpayer would fund the setting of a statutory register, but individual registrants would be required to pay an annual fee to keep their registration.
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