Since 2001, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) has set standards for conduct, performance and ethics, continuous professional development, as well as proficiency defining how physiotherapists in the UK must work safely and effectively, along with the other professions it regulates.
The HCPC keeps the standards under continual review and updates them intermittently to ensure they continue to reflect current practice and can be clearly understood by those who use them.
The standards of proficiency were updated on 1 September 2023. The next set of standards to update is the standards of conduct, performance and ethics, along with the HCPC guidance on social media, from 1 September 2024.
This webpage will give you a summary of the changes and signpost you to resources to help you feel prepared to take the standards into practice.
On this page:
The HCPC standards are necessary to assure the safe and effective practice of physiotherapists, and play an important role in protecting the public. They describe what physios must know, understand and be able to do, both at the time they apply to join the register and at the biennial point of re-registration when a percentage of physios are selected for CPD audit.
The HCPC keeps a register of professionals known as ‘registrants’ who, by meeting these standards, are allowed to practise under a protected title as a physiotherapist in the UK. The HCPC can also investigate complaints when concerns are raised about a registrant’s fitness to practise.
The standards are essential to all practising physios because they form the baseline against which a registrant will be judged should a fitness-to-practise complaint be made against them. Failure to meet the standards could therefore result in sanctions from the HCPC – including being removed from the register. The standards are also relevant to students undertaking pre-registration studies who need to be aware of and ready to meet the standards when they qualify and start practising.
As well as providing a high-level framework against which physios can measure their practice, the standards can be useful tools to help problem solve and sense check day-to-day decisions, to influence change and improve patient care and the patient experience, and to help assure or sense check our personal development plans.
2023 changes to the standards of proficiency
On 1 September 2023, the HCPC standards of proficiency for physiotherapists were updated.
All registered members must be aware of these changes and be able to demonstrate their practice meets the new standards moving forward.
What has changed?
Following the HCPC’s consultation process, the changes move away from physios passively understanding the standards to a requirement that they can actively demonstrate the standards in practice.
More focus has been put on the following areas:
- Equality, diversity, and inclusion
- Centralising the role of the service-user
- Promoting public health and preventing ill-health
- Registrants’ mental health
- Digital skills and new technologies
- Leadership at all levels of practice
Familiarise yourself with the updated standards
This Frontline article is packed with advice and resources, including guidance from the HCPC
Go to the HCPC website to compare the updated and old standards. This page includes a Gap Analysis Tool – to help you identify where there may be shortfalls in your practice or knowledge, and direct you toward your next steps to ensure you are meeting the standards.
Other HCPC resources:
What if the new proficiency standards are not all relevant for your role?
The HCPC advises that a registrant’s particular scope of practice may mean that they are unable to continue to demonstrate that they meet all the standards of proficiency that apply for the whole of their profession. It says that: 'As long as they make sure they are practising safely and effectively, within their given scope of practice, and do not practise in the areas where they are not proficient to do so, this will not be a problem.'
This means standards should be applied within your scope of practice. For example, if you are working in a non-patient-facing role you will not be expected to demonstrate standard 14.6 – Understand and be able to apply appropriate moving and handling techniques – as this is not part of your role.
What should your employer be doing?
It is your employer’s responsibility to be aware of the changes and create an environment where you can meet the new standards. This may include opportunities to discuss these as part of supervision, team meetings and/or CPD opportunities to support you to demonstrate the standards in your practice.
If you require help in requesting more support from your employer, please contact your workplace CSP steward.
Those with no workplace CSP steward should contact our ERUS team via CSP enquiries team:
- Call: 020 7306 6666
- Email: enquiries@csp.org.uk
Standards of conduct, performance and ethics update on 1 September 2024
The HCPC standards of conduct, performance and ethics are the ethical framework within which HCPC registrants must work; they apply across all 15 of the HCPC regulated professions so are not profession specific.
Across the end of 2022 and the first half of 2023, the HCPC ran a wide-ranging consultation process asking how the standards of conduct performance and ethics should be updated to reflect modern practice. The consultation was open to individual registrants as well as organisations and included a response from the CSP.
Following the consultation period, along with the HCPC guidance on social media, the standards of conduct, performance and ethics have been revised.
The updated standards and guidance on social media will come into effect for registrants from 1 September 2024.
What will change from 1 September 2024?
Following the HCPC’s consultation process, the updates to the standards of conduct, performance and ethics will put more focus on the following areas:
- Equality diversity and inclusion
- Communication
- Duty of candour
- Upskilling and training responsibilities
- Managing existing health conditions and disabilities in the workplace
- Sustainability
The HCPC has produced resources to support registrants understand the expectation of these changes and to give advice about how to take them into practice:
- Find out how and why the HCPC are updating these standards
- Watch this HCPC webinar explaining the updates theme by theme
- If you are a student, watch this HCPC webinar for students explaining the updates theme by theme on the HCPC student hub
It is important that you understand and follow the updates to the HCPC guidance on social media, which are linked to the standards updates.
The HCPC will be running a series of events and developing supportive resources on the run-up to the 1 September 2024 to support registrant's readiness to take the changes into practice.