Sonographer Assessment Project

Tender description

HEE wishes to commission the Professional Standard Authority (PSA) to undertake a joint assessment of the evidence of risk of harm to the public and patients from the Sonographer, or ultrasound practitioner role. The exercise will require use of the PSA’s commercial risk-based regulation model and lead to an independent evidence-based recommendation on the most appropriate form of assurance for the Sonographer role. The Professional Standards Authority is an independent body, accountable to Parliament, that oversees the nine health and care professional regulators in the UK. It also accredits voluntary registers (including the existing voluntary register for the Sonographer profession) and develops thinking around regulatory policy and practice. The DHSC has proposed that the PSA become the future authority to advise on the regulation of healthcare roles and that the Right-touch model could become the UK’s standard assessment methodology for this purpose (the DHSC’s Promoting Professionalism, Reforming Regulation consultation from 2017 – Section 2.2). To this end, use of the PSA’s model for this assessment (the model that is intended to become the future standard) ensures that HEE’s assessment is sustainable and aligns with the UK’s proposed future regulatory framework. Keywords: Please Ref to the RFQ