The public

‘The public’ can mean anyone with an interest in our work including, but not limited to, individual service users and carers, third sector and service-user organisations, and patient advocacy groups.

We ensure we have a wide range of perspectives and views embedded in our core areas of work by inviting members of the public to join us:

• in responding to our consultations;
• by sitting on a professional liaison group (PLG);
• as lay members on the Council;
• as fitness to practise panel members; and
• as visitors to education and training programmes.
   

Some more specific recent and ongoing examples of public involvement include:

Communicating with the public

We undertake a wide range of public-facing communications activities such as:

• dedicated website pages for the public;
• publishing Easy Read, Welsh and other language versions of our public information materials. We also work with the Plain English Campaign to Crystal Mark our publications and website where appropriate;
• the Citizens Advice e-learning campaign – we worked with Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) to develop an interactive module built for their ‘Advisor net’ e-learning system. We also work to raise awareness of the HCPC with Citizens Advice bureaux nationally; and
• the Older people campaign – a campaign aimed at raising awareness of the HCPC amongst older people and those who care for them.

Joint regulators’ patient and public engagement group

We are a member of the joint regulators’ patient and public engagement group, which is comprised of representatives from each of the health and social care regulators in the UK. This forum plays an important role in sharing information, expertise and good practice. Activities have included research into public use of the online registers, a good practice handbook and a joint regulators’ leaflet (both available below), and a series of good practice seminars focussed on engaging with different sections of the public, including mental health service users and older people. The HCPC was a key contributor in the conception of the seminars, which included active engagement with service users, carers and third sector organisations.

National Voices

We are a member of National Voices, a coalition of charities that stands for people being in control of their health and social care. National Voices help people and organisations to improve the knowledge, understanding, skills and confidence they need to engage more effectively and to make their approaches more person-centred.

Research

We have a commitment to undertaking high quality research in the field of regulation. This involvement in key projects helps us to develop and implement appropriate policies based on a broad range of stakeholder perspectives. The perspective of the public forms an important part of this research, which we have been developing since 2009 when we published our first research strategy and commissioned our first research report into complaints.

You can find our research reports in the Resoures section of this website.