Petition regulate health care assistants

Health care assistants are increasingly taking on more and more caring responsibilities of the vulnerable. At present, unlike other health care professionals, they are not required to sign up to any professional body. This means that a heath care assistant can not be held accountable for misconduct, does not have to sign up to any dignity policy or code of conduct outside any in their own employment contract and finally cannot get struck off from any register. In essence health care assistants who are negligent cannot be prevented from practising. Nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, doctors and paramedics are just a few examples of professionals who are bound by the regulations of their own professional bodies. It is time to modernise changing practice and regulate health care assistants, in order to promote a better standard of care in hospitals, houses and residential settings.