TO BE PUBLISHED December 2025
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This conference will examine the future of professional healthcare regulation in the UK, against the background of ongoing NHS reform and the Government’s plans for health system change. It will be an opportunity to discuss how responsibilities, structures and oversight arrangements can develop, and consider implications for patient safety, quality of care and the coordination of regulatory functions across clinical and non-clinical roles.
Key developments & emerging issues
Stakeholders and policymakers will assess priorities for the next phase of reform to professional healthcare regulators, with the General Medical Council, Nursing and Midwifery Council and Health and Care Professions Council among those confirmed for early legislative change.
Discussion will focus on the statutory regulation of physician and anaesthesia associates now underway, alongside wider initiatives to modernise frameworks, improve responsiveness, and align regulatory functions with the direction of health and care system reform, as well as wider issues for the future scope of regulation following publication of the Leng Review.
The agenda will bring out best practice and latest thinking on supporting healthcare professionals at different phases of regulatory reform, including a focus on approaches to the effective deployment of associate professionals, alongside measures for improving safety.
Workforce & leadership
Sessions in the agenda will also consider proposals aimed at strengthening leadership across the health service, including draft plans for the forthcoming NHS Management and Leadership Framework, which is expected to set clearer national standards for those in leadership roles. Delegates will also consider proposals in the NHS 10-Year Health Plan to increase managerial autonomy, including through performance-linked pay and clearer accountability.
Delegates will also consider implications of the Review of patient safety across the health and care landscape, led by Professor Jane Cummings and commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care.
The planned refresh of the NHS workforce plan will also be examined in the context of the ongoing shift from hospital-based to community care, and the transition of key NHS England functions to the Department of Health and Social Care.
Regulation design, implementation & coordination
Delegates will assess how regulatory models might better support both public protection and professional practice going forward, against the backdrop of ongoing changes to regulatory responsibilities, legislative powers, and oversight arrangements.
Options for addressing consequences of prolonged delays to regulatory reform will also be assessed, including constraints they have placed on regulators’ ability to update standards, modernise procedures, and adapt to new risks.
Accountability, medical defence & use of artificial intelligence
Further sessions examine priorities for medical defence and the professional support needed to manage risk and accountability in clinical practice.
Delegates will also assess how costs are to be met within current and proposed systems, and what may be required to ensure proportionality and sustainability in the long-term.
With the use of artificial intelligence expanding in day-to-day healthcare practice, discussion will also consider what is needed from workforce education and training, looking at implications for accountability and liability within evolving models of care.
Overall areas for discussion
- registration and standards: outcomes of consultations on registration systems - revisions to professional codes - changes to regulatory performance assessment
- workforce development: training pathways - career development - design of multi-disciplinary teams - distinctions between associate professionals and doctors
- patient safety systems: clarification of safety oversight - coordination of safety responsibilities with wider system design
- NHS management regulation: new regulations for serious misconduct - requirements to support accountability and trust in leadership
- coordination: integration of functions across clinical and non-clinical roles - implications for consistency and proportionality
- regulatory practice: design and application of assessment protocols - allocation of compliance responsibilities - adapting to service needs and workforce pressures
- implementation: addressing legislative and operational barriers - priorities for progressing long-awaited reform
- regulatory coherence: promoting consistency - enabling safe, high-quality care - ensuring practicality for service delivery
- oversight and legal frameworks: future organisation of regulatory oversight - balance between professional obligations and system accountability - underpinning legal and financial structures
- fitness to practise: timeliness and efficiency - transparency - supportive and compassionate approaches - priorities for mental wellbeing
All delegates will be able to contribute to the output of the conference, which will be shared with parliamentary, ministerial, departmental and regulatory offices, and more widely. This includes the full proceedings and additional articles submitted by delegates.
