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Standards, Rules & Guidance

As one of our registrants you are expected to abide by the following standards:

Good Scientific Practice
The standards of proficiency for the your professional group or level of practice
Standards for Continuing Professional Development

It is important that you read through all the documentation for each of the standards as you join the register for the first time and remain familiar with the contents to maintain your registration. Registration is a commitment to complying with these Standards. For more detailed information on the individual standards please see the sections below:

Good Scientific Practice (GSP) sets out the professional standards on which safe and good working practice is founded for all those in the healthcare science workforce. GSP also confirms to employers the standards of behaviour and practice that all members of the healthcare science workforce must be supported to achieve and maintain, both in the NHS and all other sectors and settings.

The standards are essential for all members of the workforce to perform their job role activities, provide safe, effective patient care, and demonstrate their professionalism.

After an extensive review process, the Academy for Healthcare Science (AHCS) has published a revised version of GSP, together with three documents which summarise the changes between GSP 2012 and GSP 2021, an implementation timeline for using GSP, and one providing further reference points.

The following links provide more detail.

Standards of Proficiency

These Standards of Proficiency set out the minimum standard that a person must meet in order to first register and maintain registration with AHCS. The standards are used to guide registrant actions, approve education and training programmes and to assess whether a person’s education, training and professional practice is ‘equivalent’ to that required of a practitioner (that is, we undertake an equivalence assessment, which when successfully completed, results in a Certificate of Equivalence being awarded by the Academy).

The Standards of Proficiency cover three areas:

Professional autonomy and accountability
Skills required for practise
Knowledge of Healthcare Science

You should familiarise yourself with the Standards for the relevant part of the Register before applying. Registration is a commitment to complying with these Standards.

Standards of Proficiency for Healthcare Science Practitioners

Registered Medical Illustrators Standards of Proficiency

You are also advised to familiarise yourself with the AHCS Fitness to Practise procedure and related documentation and the Terms and Conditions of your registration. The Terms and Conditions of registration can be found by logging into your AHCS registration account and reading the declaration section of your application. This includes but is not limited to your commitments to:

Continuing Professional Development to keep your practise up-to-date, safe and effective; and understanding that you may be required to submit this information within 21 days, on request by the Registrar, and provide any other evidence as may reasonably be required;
Understanding and complying with the standards expected as a condition of registration
Informing the Academy of any change to the informationyou have provided within four weeks of the change, including, but not limited to, changes in name, home address, email address, employer and those related to your good character and health self-declaration;
Confirming that you are covered by professional indemnity insurance, either by your employer’s scheme or other appropriate insurance.

More information about maintaining your registration, can be found on the following page: https://www.ahcs.ac.uk/registration/psa-accredited-register/healthcare-science-practitioner-register/maintaining-registration/

Standards of Continuing Professional development

Continuing professional development (CPD) is the way in which our registrants continue to learn and develop throughout their careers, so that they keep their knowledge and skills up to date and are able to practise safely and effectively. We set our CPD Standards that every registrant should meet, to ensure that their activities are effective.

CPD helps you maintain or develop your competence and fitness to practise, whether your development needs are:

for the purposes of your role or profession;
required by your employer;
required to meet a specific career goal; or
aspirational, to meet your own personal goals.

CPD is an important and essential requirement for registration with the AHCS. If you do not maintain your CPD, you will be removed from the register.

The Academy standards require that you continue to develop your knowledge and skills while you are registered, these are:

Maintain a continuous, up-to-date and accurate record of their CPD activities
Demonstrate that their CPD activities are a mixture of learning activities relevant to current or future practice
Seek to ensure that their CPD has contributed to the quality of their practice and service delivery
Seek to ensure that their CPD benefits the service user
Present a written profile containing evidence of their CPD upon request

This means that to meet these standards:

You must keep a record of your CPD, in whatever format is most convenient for you.
You must make sure your CPD is a mixture of different kinds of activities – not just one kind of learning – and that it is relevant to your work. It could be relevant to your current role or to a planned future role.
You should aim for your CPD to improve the quality of your work. It may not actually improve your work, due to factors beyond your control, but when you choose your CPD activities you should intend for them to improve your work.
You should aim for your CPD to benefit service users. You may not be able ensure directly that this happens, but you should have the intention of benefiting service users. Depending on where and how you work, service users might include patients, clients, your team, or students.
If you are selected for audit, you will need to send us a CPD profile to show how you have met our standards. This process will be undertaken via our online registration system.

Each year, we audit a random sample of our registrants to make sure our standards are being met. If you are selected for CPD audit, we will write to you and ask you to send us information showing how you have met the CPD standards over the previous two years. The AHCS Registration Rules also allow for the AHCS Registrar to send a notice to a you, at any time, requiring you to submit your continuing professional development record for inspection within 21 days of the notice.

Full information can be found in the Continuing Professional Development: Standards and Guidance document, which offers guidance on how to keep a record of your CPD activities and the types of activity that are eligible to included in your profile.