Background
What is a health regulatory college?
In BC, health profession regulatory colleges are responsible for ensuring that regulated health professionals provide services in a safe, competent and ethical manner. They set standards of practice, set and maintain standards of education and training, and hold professionals to account through complaints investigation and discipline processes. Regulatory colleges also set and enforce standards of competence and conduct for the professions they regulate.
BC has 18 regulatory colleges established under BC’s Health Professions Act, which provides a common regulatory framework for 25 health professions. The six oral health professions are currently regulated by four separate regulatory colleges.
Why amalgamate?
Having a single oral health regulator will promote team-based dental care, and provide one point of contact for patients, the public and registrants alike.
The boards of the four colleges determined that moving forward with the creation of a single oral health regulator is in the public interest, and have received support from the Ministry of Health for the oral health college amalgamation.
This initiative is informed by the Government of British Columbia’s plan for modernizing the health regulatory system to better serve patients and the public. Click here to learn more.
We are excited about the opportunity to create a truly new regulatory body for oral health. The new regulator will ultimately improve patient safety, promote better outcomes for patients, and increase public confidence through transparency and accountability.
Amalgamation as part of the modernization of BC’s health regulatory system
The amalgamation initiative is informed by the BC government’s plan for modernizing the health regulatory system to better serve patients and the public.
“We’re fully invested in the goal to put patients first and the implementation of these recommendations will help strengthen the regulatory colleges’ ability to deliver on their mandate to protect the public”
In August 2020, the Minister of Health announced the final recommendations from the all-party Steering Committee on Modernization of Health Professional Regulation in British Columbia.
- Press release: “Putting patients first: parties take next step to modernize health professions regulation”
A number of specific regulatory reform measures were proposed by this steering committee. The proposed changes to the regulatory framework are designed to improve patient safety and public protection, improve efficiency and effectiveness of the regulatory framework, and improve transparency and accountability to the public. And included a reduction in the number of health colleges overall through amalgamation.
Related materials:
- Regulating Health Professions / What we heard: engagement summary report
- A diagram of the proposed modernized regulatory framework