Updated HCPC Standards of Proficiency

By: RCOT 10 August, 2023 News 7+ minute read

Did you know the HCPC standards of proficiency have been updated?

The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) sets the standards for (and regulates) 15 professions, including OT. All OTs must meet these standards to become registered and remain on the HCPC register.

HCPC reviews its standards of proficiency (SoPs) on a regular basis to ensure they remain relevant to current practice. Following comprehensive review and public consultation, the revised sets of standards for all 15 professions were approved by its Council in March 2022.

The HCPC's updated SoPs for OT – and the other professions – come into effect from Friday 1 September 2023.

What are the HCPC Standards of Proficiency?

The HCPC SoPs are unique to each of the HCPC’s registered professions and are there to protect the public. They set clear expectations of the knowledge and skills you should have and maintain when you are practising.

Revisions for each profession reflect the developments in practice within that profession, and are in line with feedback from its earlier consultation exercise. There are numerous profession-specific changes, to ensure the standards reflect contemporary threshold-level practice.

For this review, HCPC worked with a wide range of stakeholders to identify perspectives and develop standards in line with current professional practice. All SoPs were reviewed together to create meaningful impact across the health care professions.

What's changing?

Be sure to read the HCPC SoPs in full to ensure you’re meeting them, but the changes have been broken down into seven key messages.

The seven key messages

Actively implement the standards

This reflects the importance of you being an autonomous and caring professional. The active wording makes clear the expectations of you, and asks you to demonstrate rather than just understand the HCPC SoPs that apply to you.

You should consider whether you are actively implementing all the HCPC's SoPs and assess yourself against them.

Prevent ill-health

You are part of a larger healthcare system and play an important role in promoting good health in your profession that will support your colleagues in other professions.

You may already take this approach and there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to everyone’s health needs. That being said it may be worth considering what advice, referrals or other interventions you could recommend which may not be directly connected to OT, and include them in your notes and reflections.

Expand the role of EDI

As we have been intensifying our commitment to Equity, Diversity and Belonging (EDB), the HCPC is also committed to ensuring that you can provide healthcare to all those you work with.

The changes being made strengthen the EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) requirements that already existed in the SoPs.

The new requirements ask you to proactively think about how you can make care as accessible as possible, taking into consideration adjustments that may be required for protected characteristics.

Centralise those who need support

How the health professions understand consent has been evolving and the new standards ask you to take a wider range of circumstances into account when determining consent. HCPC's SoPs on confidentiality have also been strengthened and consider the impact of new technology.

Under the new update you must be especially mindful of the needs of those living with a disability or a health condition which impacts their ability to communicate. You’ll need to consider and document what additional steps you can take to keep someone fully involved in their care or, where that’s not possible, their carer, family member, and/or representative.

Look after your own mental-health

The update asks you to think about your own mental health and seek help where necessary as part of your fitness to practise.

If your health, mental or physical, is impacting your ability to practise safely then you should not be currently practising. It is important you proactively manage and understand your mental health.

You may want to consider including wellness goals in your personal reflections and notes. You may also be interested in our short well-being sessions we held at our 2022 Annual Conference.

Up-to-date digital skills and tech

You will be expected to keep up with new ways of working in our profession. This doesn’t mean being able to use all the technology OTs have access to, but you should understand the pieces that are relevant to your field and be confident in considering the impact it has on those you work with. This is particularly important in relation to data confidentiality.

You may find it helpful to make tech a big part of your CPD going forward.

Highlight leadership at every level

Much like the first of these changes, this point focuses on you as an autonomous professional who can display leadership without being in a management role.

Leadership means different things to different roles, but demonstrating how you display leadership qualities will be important. The HCPC will be developing some online materials but you may also be interested in our leadership forum.

You can download the revised HCPC standards of proficiency for occupational therapists as a PDF by visiting the HCPC website.

You can also view the consultation document on their website too.

If you have any further questions about the updated standards of proficiency you can also get in touch with our Professional Advisory Service via professional.advisoryservice@rcot.co.uk.