Upskilling and training responsibilities

Why?

We often receive questions from registrants regarding their scope of practice, particularly in relation to taking on new roles. The changes that we have made provide further guidance around this and highlight the need to make sure registrants have the knowledge, skills and experience to practise safely and effectively. 

Specific standards

Keep within your scope of practice

• 3.1 You must only practise in the areas where you have the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience to meet the needs of a service user safely and effectively.
• 3.2 You must undertake additional training to update your knowledge, skills and experience if you wish to widen your scope of practice.
• 3.3 You must refer a service user to an appropriate practitioner if the care, treatment or other services they need are beyond your scope of practice. This person must hold the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience to meet the needs of the service user safely and effectively.
  
  

Expectations of registrants

• Our standards already require registrants to only practise in the areas where they have appropriate knowledge, skills and experience, however, the updated standards provide clarity for those wishing to widen their scope of practice. This more explicitly recognises that scope of practice develops over time and supports registrants to transition to a wider scope of practice whilst also ensuring they practise safely and effectively.
• We have also provided more information around referring service users to other practitioners and added an explicit requirement to clarify that the person being referred to must hold the appropriate knowledge skills and experience to meet the service user’s needs safely and effectively.  
  
  

Webinar: Scope of practice

Our #myHCPCstandards webinar below explores scope of practice, what it is, how to consider it and how it relates to the revised standards. 

More information