Advice for employers and managers

Please see our service updates page for information about how our education, registration, and fitness to practise functions are delivering services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have also issued a joint statement with the Chief Executives of statutory health and care regulators which sets out how we will carry out our roles during this time.

We recognise that our registrants are working in challenging environments and will be delivering healthcare in different ways. This will impact the application of all our Standards of conduct, performance and ethics.

We have developed information pages on applying the standards during COVID-19. These cover each of the ten overarching standards of the Standards of conduct, performance and ethics and outline our expectations for how they will be met during the COVID-19 pandemic.

More support and advice can be found on our Employer Hub. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the HCPC has worked with the UK Government to create a COVID-19 temporary register. 

Our intention in doing so is to ensure there are no regulatory barriers to the following two groups practising on a temporary basis:

• Former registrants who have de-registered within the last three years.
• Third year biomedical science and clinical science students, on UK approved programmes, who have completed all their clinical practice placements.

We have ensured nobody appears on this list who has been subject to fitness to practise concerns in the past.

We have also decided to exclude annotations on the COVID-19 temporary register(s).

This means registrants on the COVID-19 temporary register will not be able to practice in high-risk areas, such as prescribing or podiatric surgery.

This may however be subject to change, and we will continue to monitor developments to ensure this continues to be an appropriate approach.

You can find the COVID-19 temporary register here.

COVID-19 temporary registrants who go back into practice will need to meet the Standards of conduct, performance and ethics and the standards of proficiency for your profession (as far as they relate to your scope of practice).

They will not need to meet our standards for CPD, nor will they be subject to CPD audit. This reflects that registration is a temporary, short term measure. However, they should take all steps possible to ensure their skills, knowledge and experience are kept up to date when practising. We have provided more information about this here. 

The HCPC standards will only apply to people on the COVID-19 temporary Register if they return to practice. If they do not return to practice, the HCPC standards will not apply to them in their personal life.

Please note, the COVID-19 temporary register should not be read as a list of professionals ready to enter practice, or who are in any way verified to be meeting the standards and safe to return. It is the responsibility of the individual and prospective employer to determine this, based on their individual circumstances.

If you have a concern about a COVID-19 temporary registrant, please email ftp@hcpc-uk.org. There is additional guidance on raising a concern available on our website.

Please note, due to the nature of the register, and the increased risks involved, any concern raised which meets our Triage test (as explained in our Threshold Policy) will result in removal from the Register with immediate effect.

We would encourage employers to read the guidance we have issued on COVID-19 temporary registrants and the standards. In particular, this sets out our positon regarding a COVID-19 temporary registrant’s scope of practice and how we will consider the standards if a concern is raised.