Health & care professions council (HCPC)

This council is a regulator, and was set up to protect the public. To do this, a Register of health and care professionals is kept who meet the council's standards for their training, professional skills, behaviour and health.

You can search by finding the profession of the person you want to check e.g. "social worker in England" in the drop-down menu and then enter their surname or registration number in the search box. Here is the link:

HCPC

 

Care Quality Commission (CQC)

The Care Quality Commission has recently been reformed and made more effective through re-structuring and new leadership.

CQC's job is to check whether Hospitals, Care homes, GPs, Dentists and Services in your home are meeting national standards.

You can search the service type you are interested in, keywords and town, city or postcode.

Here is the link:

CQC

General Medical Council (GMC)

The Medical Register
Doctors must be registered with a licence to practise with the General Medical Council (GMC) to practise medicine in the UK.

Patients trust doctors with their lives and wellbeing. They need to have confidence that doctors are competent in their field and abide by high ethical standards.

The GMC's duty is to protect this public interest. By keeping up-to-date registers of qualified doctors, the GMC aims to ensure that all registered doctors maintain the standards the public and the medical profession expect.

Here is the link:

If you click on "List of registered medical practitioners" it will give you search boxes - you don't need to know the doctor's registration number to find out if a doctor is registered. It will also give you his/her qualifications.

Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC)

Adult Social Care Outcomes

This website presents data on outcomes for adult users of local authority funded social care and support, including carers, for each local authority area. A map is displayed and you can click on your county to see the results listed on the right: