Health and Care Professions Council standards of proficiency

Get ready for changes to the HCPC standards of proficiency

By 1 September all HCPC registrants must be ready to integrate the updated HCPC standards of proficiency in their practice. The standards form the baseline against which a registrant will be judged should a fitness to practise complaint be made against them. Failure to meet the standards could therefore result in sanctions from the HCPC – including being removed from the register. 

So how should physiotherapists prepare? In this article we offer expert advice, guidance and signpost to ideas and resources to help you take action so you can get ready to embed the updated standards into your practice.

HCPC guidance on how to prepare

We put key questions about the changes to Kim Tolley, interim head of professionalism and upstream regulation at the HCPC.

What do physiotherapists need to know about the changes?

The updated standards come into effect on 1 September. By then, all HCPC-registered physiotherapists will need to understand how the changes affect them and be ready to integrate them into their practice. 

The changes fall into the following key themes, which you can learn more about on our website: 

• equality, diversity, and inclusion  
• centralising the role of the service-user  
• promoting public health and preventing ill-health
• registrant’s mental health  
• digital skills and new technologies  
• leadership at all levels of practice 

The standards were revised following extensive consultation with a range of stakeholders, including registrants. As a result, the key themes should resonate with changes that you have seen in your own physiotherapy practice.

The updates are more than just words: they are aspects of care that, we know, physiotherapists grapple with on a daily basis. 

What should our members do to get ready?

The first step we recommend is to inventory your own practice, with regards to the updated standards. Ask yourself what aspects you are proud of, what aspects you don’t know enough about and what aspects could be embedded more in your day-to-day work. 

The second step is to collect support materials about the changes. What has been written and where? The CSP has clear material available to members about this can be found here and here titled HCPC standards for physiotherapists and Health and Care Professions Council raising the standards.

The HCPC also has webpages that go through the changes that have been made and the reasons why these changes have been written titled 'Revisions to the standards of proficiency'. We also have a blog for easy reading, which provides background to the updates and what they are doing to help registrants. There is also a series of webinars specifically designed to help embed these updates and to support HCPC registrants in meeting the standards. 

The third step is to talk to your colleagues about the changes. Are you all feeling the same way? What can you learn from each other about your reflections? Where can you discuss this – perhaps at a team or ward meeting, during supervision or with your employer?  

The fourth step is to formalise this whole process by using a gap analysis tool. Our gap analysis tool (find attached below) has already helped physiotherapists to reflect on these areas and identify what they may need to focus on during continuing their professional development (CPD) – this can feed into your annual appraisals or supervision. 

The gap analysis tool can also be used to drive changes in your practice or service and to lobby managers to support you in integrating the changes into your practice.

Do you have any advice for physios to consider when they are working under pressure to be able to meet the changes? 

You don’t need to do the steps above all at once, take them gradually over the next few months. 

A key part of this can be sharing your progress with the teams you work with, which will mean you can embed the changes together and reduce the individual burden. Even sole practitioners can seek supervision and/or support to achieve the same result.

We also recommend that you disseminate your reflections and improvements on the CSP website, and use others’ thoughts as a resource. 

Bharat the ACP

Bharat is an advanced clinical practitioner (ACP) in primary care. His ACP role title no longer includes physiotherapist. However, he’s still required to maintain his primary registration as a physiotherapist with the HCPC and therefore prepare for the standard of proficiency (SOP) changes. Reflecting on the 2024 HCPC re-registration period, he feels nervous and wonders how will he be able to demonstrate that he is meeting the HCPC standards for physiotherapy when he is working outside the scope of his registered profession.

Bharat checks with the HCPC. They advise the limits and expectations of his role as an ACP would form his particular scope of practice but reminded him that he should not undertake tasks unless he can demonstrate that he is educated, trained and competent to do so safely.

Bharat undertakes a HCPC SOPs gap analysis and establishes his priority areas requiring development as applying public health in practice and centralising the role of the service user. He notes that these are in line with his organisation’s strategy.

To increase his knowledge Bharat undertakes free training from the Institute of Personalised Care, uses the NHS e-learning on population health and signs up for the CSP webinar on health inequalities and population health. He reflects on his learning and formulates ideas about how he, as an ACP, can take these approaches into practice.

In liaison with his supervisor, he agrees to review the current methods used for shared decision making in primary care. He looks for patterns in the practice data in comparison to data from his local population to assess if there are groups who are not successfully accessing the services. Bharat develops a QI project around improving engagement with vulnerable population groups and shares his learning with the wider team.

Jordyn the team member

Jordyn works as a rotational physiotherapist in a large hospital. The therapy team has been informed in team meetings that the HCPC standards are changing and that they will need to prepare for this. As individuals, they have been asked to work through the gap analysis tool and identify areas to focus on. Jordyn has volunteered to support an internationally trained physiotherapist who has joined the team, and on discussing their friends’ and families’ experiences within healthcare, Jordyn becomes increasingly aware of the need for practice to be inclusive to all service users, and for the team to be able to demonstrate that they are aware of any barriers to service inclusion and are actively working to overcome them.

Jordyn looks on the CSP website for resources to support them and uses the microaggressions resources to facilitate a CPD session within the team where people discuss experiences and how they can address issues that they observe. Jordyn organises a member of the trust’s equality, diversity, and inclusion team to support this session and discuss local issues. Each team member is asked to reflect on the session and make one point for action to change within their practice. The team also discuss potential barriers, for example, privacy when a patient requires an interpreter, and plan solutions to address these, in this case, being able to secure a private consulting room, rather than a cubicle. The team also discuss the possibility of working with local groups via contacts in the equality, diversity, and inclusion team to gain specific feedback on the services they have received and to begin to formulate solutions together.

Malia the sole practitioner

Malia works as a self-employed sole practitioner physiotherapist. She is aware that the HCPC standards for physiotherapy are being updated but is unsure how this may apply to her in her role, seeing patients on a self-employed basis in their homes and in a small, rented clinic space.

Malia uses the HCPC website to look at the updated standards and see which reflect her practice. During Covid restrictions, Malia stopped practicing for a short time and then carried out face to face appointments with appropriate protective equipment. As part of her future planning Malia is considering offering remote consultations and treatments to patients, so decided to initially focus on the digital skills and new technologies standard. To further her knowledge about this, Malia reads the information on the CSP’s website regarding digital physiotherapy and remote consultations. She uses the guidance from The National Evaluation of Remote Physiotherapy Services to start designing a remote option for her patients.

Malia also posts on the independent practitioners iCSP channel to find out if and how other sole practitioners offer remote consultations to patients. Malia discusses the options of hybrid treatments with her patients and finds that the majority would welcome this as an option for treatment. Malia reviews the HCPC standards and realises that the work she has done around remote consultations also supports her learning and achievement within the further centralising the service user standard as she would be able to offer alternative personalised options for treatment for her patient.

What does it mean for students, apprentices and universities? 

CSP education adviser Tamsin Baird explains:

All physiotherapy learners are required to demonstrate the HCPC standards of proficiency when they graduate to enable them to enter the profession and become a registered physiotherapist.

Universities must ensure that their graduates meet the standards for the profession and go through rigorous processes with the HCPC to assure this. The standards are delivered to learners within many elements of programme design, across modules and within learning outcomes.

The revised sets of standards of proficiency must be delivered to all new physiotherapy cohorts from September 2023 and universities have been working with the HCPC to embed the standards into their programmes from this date.

Students and apprentices who started their physiotherapy programmes before September 2023 may not have been explicitly taught against the revised standards but will need to demonstrate them when they enter the register. We would advise you to become aware of the most recent version of the standards and follow the advice and resources within this article.