Canonical Hour

There is a large population of workers in the healthcare sector who play an important role but have not been registered or regulated. While there are 620,000 nurses and midwives in the UK, there are close to one million support workers. This has worried the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which now plans to study the risk posed by their not being regulated and the need to regulate their qualifications and functions.

The research will be done by Professor Peter Griffiths and Dr Sarah Robinson who will carry out a risk assessment and analyze how much danger these health care support workers pose to the well being of the patients. This might lead to the decision to regulate them. The regulation may affect the workers themselves and also the way the work is provided to them by nurses etc.

The study will also look at the work that the regulating authority will have to do and the end result in terms of its effects on the people involved. The study will be over by spring of this year and a report will be submitted to the Executive Management Board of the NMC.

NMC Chief Executive and Registrar, Professor Dickon Weir-Hughes, stated that the study has been started after a long debate regarding the regulation of health care support workers. Safety of the public is a very important issue and health care workers, who are not registered and regulated, pose serious concern. For example, a nurse whose registration has been cancelled can easily find work as a health care support worker and be involved in critical healthcare functions. This is worrying many people who think that safety of the patients may be at risk here.

The integration of good health and safety management systems is an essential principle of any business. Companies need to be sure that they are giving the correct instructions to employees with regard to health and safety issues. NEBOSH courses leading to a National General Certificate in Occupational Safety and Health, from Workplace Law are designed to give managers and supervisors all they need to know to help their organisation find the best ways to lead and promote health and safety.