The Health Professions (Operating Department Practitioners and Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2004

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order designates operating department practitioners as one of the professions regulated under the Health Professions Order 2001 (“the principal Order”). A number of amendments are made to the principal Order and related legislation as a consequence of this – and in addition this Order makes a number of other, miscellaneous amendments to, or relating to, the principal Order.

Part 1 of the Order contains the amendments relevant to the designation of operating department practitioners as a regulated profession. The definition of a “relevant profession” for the purposes of the principal Order is expanded to include operating department practitioners (article 3(4)) and the membership of the Health Professions Council (“the Council”) is expanded to include an operating department practitioner registrant member. As a consequence, the Council is also to have an extra alternate member and an extra lay member (article 3(2)). Similar provision is made in respect of the transitional period to which Schedule 2 of the principal Order applies (article 3(3)(a) to (d)).

Powers are also taken so that the Privy Council may provide by order for the transfer of employees from the AODP to the Council (article 3(3)(e)).

Operating department practitioners will be required to register in the register maintained under article 5 of the principal Order (“the HPC Register”), and arrangements are to be made so that practitioners in Part 1 of the existing voluntary register maintained by the Association of Operating Department Practitioners (“the AODP”) are, except in certain circumstances, to be transferred to the HPC Register – although their home addresses are not to appear in the HPC Register without their consent (article 3(3)(f)). The Council and the AODP will be under a duty to enter into prior arrangements to ensure that the necessary transfers take place (article 2, which is to come into force before article 3).

Persons who were not on the AODP Register will, for a two year period, be able to seek registration on the basis of relevant practice, training and experience, even though they do not satisfy the requirement of having an approved qualification (article 3(1) which amends article 13 of the principal Order).

As a consequence of operating department practitioners becoming a regulated profession, the Council is designated as the authority responsible for processing applications for entry to Part 13 of the HPC Register from migrants having similar qualifications recognised in the European Economic Area or Switzerland – and for authorising those migrants to practise in the United Kingdom in accordance with Council Directive 92/51/EEC on a second general system for the recognition of professional education and training(1), as amended and extended(2) (article 4).

Part 2 of this Order contains some miscellaneous amendments to the principal Order and related legislation. Medical laboratory technicians are to be known instead as biomedical scientists (articles 5, 6, 7, 8(b), 9(a) and (c), 10(5)(b)(ii) and 11(a)(ii) and (b)) and the designation for chiropodists in the principal Order is modified to cover podiatrists (article 10(5)(b)(i)), with consequential changes being made elsewhere (articles 8(a), 9(b) and 11(a)(i)). Amendments are also made to provisions of the principal Order relating to appeals and Privy Council inquiries to ensure that expenses are recoverable in Scotland and that appeals to the sheriff in Scotland will be to the sheriff in whose sheriffdom the appellant’s address in the register is (or if he were registered would be) situated (article 10(2) to (4)). Two drafting errors are also corrected (article 10(1) and (5)(a)).

A full regulatory impact assessment of the impact this instrument will have on public services and business is available from Christine Holmes, Health Regulation Branch, Department of Health, Romm 2N35B, Quarry House, Leeds LS2 7UE. Email [e-mail].

(1)

OJ No. L209, 24.7.1992, p.25.

(2)

The Directive was last amended by Directive 2001/19/EC (OJ No. L 206, 31.7.2001, p.1) and was extended to Switzerland by the Agreement between the European Community and its Member States of the one part, and the Swiss Confederation of the other, on the free movement of persons, signed at Luxembourg on 21 June 1999 (OJ No. L 114, 30.4.2002, p.6).