Áine Brady (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I am taking the Adjournment on behalf of my colleague the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. I thank Senator Corrigan for raising this issue and for giving me the opportunity to update the House on the regulation of health and social care professions and on continuing professional development for those professions. The Health Service Executive encourages and provides for the continuing professional development of all relevant health and social care professionals employed in the health service. The relevant service managers would determine whether individuals can be released to attend particular events such as that referred to by Senator Corrigan.

The Health and Social Care Professionals Act was passed by the Oireachtas in 2005. The Act provides for the establishment of a system of statutory registration for 12 health and social care professions. This new system of statutory registration will apply to the 12 professions regardless of whether they work in the public or private sector or are self-employed, and is the first time that fitness to practise procedures will be put in place for those professionals on a statutory basis.

The 12 professions to be regulated under the Act are clinical biochemists, dieticians, medical scientists, occupational therapists, orthoptists, physiotherapists, podiatrists, psychologists, radiographers, social care workers, social workers and speech and language therapists. The structure of the system of statutory registration will comprise a registration board for each of the professions to be registered, a Health and Social Care Professionals Council with overall responsibility for the regulatory system and a committee structure to deal with disciplinary matters.

As a first step in the implementation of the system of statutory registration, the Health and Social Care Professionals Council was established by the Minister for Health and Children in March 2007. The council recruited a chief executive officer in May of last year and is working to put in place the necessary structures for registration, education and fitness to practise for the 12 health and social care professions designated in the Act. While the proposed system of statutory registration applies, in the first instance, to 12 health and social care professions, the legislation empowers the Minister for Health and Children to include, on the basis of specific criteria, additional health and social care professions in the regulatory system by regulation over time, as appropriate.

Professional development refers to a process whereby individual members of a profession increase their level of knowledge and refine or learn new skills for application in relevant professional practice and the associated workplace. Continuing professional development is the ongoing process of developing and updating the knowledge and skills necessary to ensure competent professional practice. It is recommended that continuing professional development planning ideally should be carried out by therapists with managers or peers to determine professional objectives relevant to the current work setting.

Under section 31(1)(h) of the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005, the registration board of a designated profession may, subject to section 32, make by-laws relating to the education, training and continuing professional development of registrants of that profession. Registration boards for each of the designated professions in the 2005 Act are not yet established. The Health and Social Care Professionals Council has decided that social workers and physiotherapists are the two professions from among the designated 12 which are most suitable for early registration to be established during 2009. Under the 2005 Act, the issue of appropriate continuing professional development for the designated professions concerned will be examined further following the establishment of the registration board for each designated profession.