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Realising the Vision

 

UKCHIP serves patients and the public by promoting their health, care, safety and well-being through the strong and independent certification[1] of health informatics professionals.  It will realise its vision by:

  • promoting the advancement and dissemination of knowledge about health informatics, both generally and among persons belonging to the profession and other professions;
  • working with others to define and agree the standards of professional conduct and competence required of persons working in health informatics in the United Kingdom, both in terms of core requirements and such additional requirements relevant to any branch or constituency of health informatics;
  • publishing and maintaining a register of all persons who have been assessed against and reached the standards required to practice as a health informatics professional in the United Kingdom;
  • demonstrating its own professional authority and legitimacy through accreditation[2] of its organisational processes and procedures against ISO/IEC 17024:2003 with the UK Accreditation Service (UKAS).  In the long term, UKCHIP could potentially operate under the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence[3].

Registration with UKCHIP, which is an individual aspiration, will be undertaken voluntarily within an environment where registration is preferred by relevant employing and contracting organisations.  In due course, professional registration could be required by statute or legislation for anyone wishing to work in health informatics.

Applications for registration with UKCHIP will be approved only following qualified assessment against defined professional standards and competences.

A person's registration will be retained only by adequate demonstration that defined professional standards and competences are being maintained, together with evidence of continuing professional development.

A person's registration will be withdrawn in cases where levels of competence and professional development are not maintained, where contravention of the professional Code of Conduct is proven or where allegations or complaints against a registrant are upheld by Council.


[1] Certification is the establishment of standards and assessment against those standards.

[2] Accreditation is assessment of an organisation and its processes through external validation.  ISO/IEC 17024:2003 is the international standard which sets out criteria for an organisation's certification program for individual persons.

[3] Section 29 of the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002 gives the CHRE powers and responsibilities for protecting the public. Since April 2009, under their new powers within Section 115 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, the CHRE have also audited the decisions made by regulators at the initial stages of their Fitness to Practise procedures.