NCAHP notifies policy for state bodies to regulate allied health science courses, colleges, AHP registration

The central government has approved a new set of regulations for setting up key state-level bodies to enforce common curricula for allied health science courses, evaluate educational institutes and register professionals. For states that are yet to set up councils, the National Council for Allied and Healthcare Professions’ Central Assessment Committee (CAC) will handle those responsibilities.

The regulations, notified last week by the NCAHP, the apex regulator for the allied healthcare sector , pertain to the constitution and functions of four autonomous boards under the State Allied and Healthcare Councils (SAHC), the commission’s provincial counterparts. These bodies are tasked with helping implement the academic and institutional norms laid down by the regulator, bringing standardisation and quality to allied and healthcare training.

The approved regulations largely mirror the draft version released earlier this year by NCAHP for public consultation. Besides the state-level autonomous boards , the document also provides for creating the CAC to look after the affairs of the states and union territories that are yet to have functioning councils in place.

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These bodies – the Undergraduate (UG) Education Board, the Postgraduate (PG) Education Board, the Assessment and Rating Board and the Ethics and Registration Board – are similar to the ones governing medical colleges. But unlike the medical sector, where the autonomous boards function at the central level under the National Medical Commission (NMC) , the allied and healthcare boards are with the state councils, facilitating a more decentralised governance.

NCAHP: Courses, faculty training, inspections

The creation of these bodies will likely speed up the centre’s efforts to control and bring uniformity to the largely unregulated allied and healthcare professions (AHP). Since it was created around two years ago, the commission has drafted common curricula and institute norms for 18 AHP programmes. It has also issued regulations for registering the professionals and has proposed ethics guidelines for them.

Under the new regulations, UG and PG Boards have been tasked with facilitating implementation of standards for courses, competency-based curricula, faculty development, training and research. The Assessment and Rating Boards will be primarily responsible for evaluating applications for recognition from educational institutes, carrying out inspections and identifying their lapses. The Ethics and Registration Boards will maintain the state registers of professionals and enforce professional ethics guidelines.

The regulations also provide a structured mechanism for inspecting educational institutes through three-member teams comprising relevant board representatives and empanelled assessors.

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The inspecting team is required to factor in a number of parameters, including compliance with standards, academic excellence and innovative teaching, research output and impact, student discipline and learning environment, student feedback, participation of students and faculty in academic, sports and social activities, and availability of sports and social facilities.

Each of the boards will have 10 to 20 members, while CAC can have up to 30 members. The members will be appointed for a term of two years and they will be eligible for reappointment for two consecutive terms. The members need to declare their assets and liabilities as well as conflicts of interest.

NCAHP said that the new regulatory framework is intended to strengthen standardisation, institutional accountability, transparency and quality assurance. “By establishing clearly defined institutional assessment, inspection and rating mechanisms, together with dedicated functions for education, ethics and registration, the regulations provide a structured framework for improving the quality of education and professional standards in the allied and healthcare sector,” reads a statement from the commission.

However, as reported earlier by Careers360 , the implementation of NCAHP’s directives so far has been uneven , with some of the states yet to even form their councils – the first step towards enforcing regulations. The universities and colleges have also highlighted other teething problems including disparity in existing courses’ structure and nomenclature, faculty shortage and prevalence of diploma programmes.