The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) is pressing ahead with plans to hike its registration fees by a massive 20%.
Health professionals regulated by the HCPC, which include paramedics, occupational therapists, operating department practitioners and clinical scientists, are required to pay this annual fee before they are allowed to practise.
If the increase is imposed, HCPC fees will have risen by 47% since 2014 – a figure in no way matched by the persistently below-inflation pay rises received by NHS staff over the same period.
We believe the timing of the fee increase is seriously ill-judged and tone-deaf to the struggles that NHS staff are currently facing.
We do not believe that fees should rise when registrants have suffered real-terms pay cuts for so long. The registration fee is, in effect, a tax on health and care staff who must pay this before they can even work in their chosen professions.
We will continue to fight to overturn the HCPC’s decision.
How you can help?
Write to your MP and ask them to sign Early Day Motion 939 calling for the fee rise to be scrapped.