Consultation on revisions to the standards of education and training

We’re proposing changes to our standards of education and training (SETs), which make sure that future health and care professionals trained in the UK are equipped to deliver safe and effective care.

We review our standards regularly to ensure they remain up to date and reflect current practice and wider society.

We’d like to hear from as many people and organisations as possible through our consultation – including students/learners, education providers, professional bodies, unions, registrants, and of course service users.

Key proposed changes 

• New structure: The standards are reorganised to align with how education providers use the standards and to formalise an institution and programme split.
• Stronger focus on equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI): We’re strengthening the EDI element by including an explicit requirement for education providers to embed EDI across all strategies and policies. It weaves in an increased focus on EDI throughout each theme, so this consideration is consistently and meaningfully embedded across all aspects of education and training.   
• Technology readiness: We want to make sure that the standards are future proofed, which is why we’ve built in a focus on technology. We’ve set out an expectation that education providers and educators should be competent to both use and teach with new digital technologies in an appropriate, ethical, and effective way.  
• Applicable to all learning models: We have strengthened the standards to ensure that they are effectively applied to all learning settings – from classrooms, through to practice-based, and remote learning – ensuring a fair and quality experience for all learners, no matter the format.   

How to respond

The consultation is now live and will be open for 13 weeks, closing on Monday 16 February 2026.   

To take part in the consultation, please complete our survey, which consists of 10 consultation questions. 

Respond to our consultation

Here are the documents to help you respond to the consultation. We encourage you to read them before completing the survey. 

• Proposed revised standards of education and training
  The full proposed revised version of the standards of education and training.  
• Standards of education and training – consultation commentary
  The proposed changes, alongside the current standards. This enables you to compare the proposed changes to the current standards, while also providing an explanation of why we are proposing the changes. You may find this document the most useful if you’re less familiar with the standards or you don’t use them regularly in your work.  
• Standards of education and training – consultation document
  An explanation of our standards of education and training, the purpose of the consultation, and the consultation questions.   

Respond to our consultation in Welsh / Cymraeg

Any information included in your response will be treated in accordance with our data protection policy and privacy notice.

If you would like a version in an alternative format, please email consultation@hcpc-uk.org.

Consultation events

As part of our consultation, we’ll be holding a series of targeted workshops with education providers, learners, and professional bodies:

• 11 December 2025 - SET 1 and structure
• 15 January 2026 - EDI and data
• 27 January 2026 - Emerging technologies

We are also holding workshops for members of the public and wider stakeholders:

• 18 December 2025
• 13 January 2026
• 28 January 2026

More details on the events and how you can register will follow shortly.

What are the HCPC standards of education and training?

Our SETs require education providers to meet certain criteria to be able to run education and training programmes for the 15 different health and care professions that we regulate.

Why are these standards important?

Our standards for education and training are a key part of our statutory role to protect the public.

Strong standards mean that the public can feel assured that anyone qualifying in the UK will have the skills and knowledge they need to join our Register and to deliver safe and effective care.

Our standards also mean that students and learners can feel assured that their education providers in the UK are delivering high-quality education and that they will be well supported throughout.