Approving educational programmes for paramedics

The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) has a number of functions imposed on it by law (governing legislation) and their key function is to protect the public. They do this in a number of ways: for example, by setting standards for education and training, professional knowledge, skills, conduct, performance and ethics of registrants (HCPC, 2016a). They maintain a register of professionals who meet those standards. Currently, there are over 340 478 registrants on the HCPC register coming from 16 different professions (HCPC, 2016b) (see Table 1). The HCPC is a statutory UK regulator and is governed by the Health and Social Work Professions Order 2001.

From: HCPC, 2016a

The HCPC approve programmes which professionals must successfully complete before they are able to make an application to the HCPC to register with them. The HCPC takes action when professionals who are on their register fail to meet the minimum standards that are set by them.