Overview of consultation

Between March and May 2025, the Public Standards Authority sought feedback ahead of releasing a new version of its guidance document Right-touch regulation in October 2025. More information can be found on the PSA's website and in the Right-touch Regulation discussion paper. 

MPS response

We welcome the opportunity to respond to the Reviewing Right-touch Regulation discussion paper, as well at the initiative to revise and update the Right-touch Regulation framework to ensure it remains relevant in an evolving regulatory landscape.

MPS particularly welcomes the introduction of ‘Fairness’ as a principle of good regulation. The acknowledgment of the impact of regulation on registrants is important, and we strongly support the view that fairness must be central to all regulatory activity.

We believe the most impactful contribution regulators can make towards fairness, is to implement their duties in a fair way when investigating the individuals that they regulate, and we would encourage this to be the core focus of this new principle.

We note that the new ‘Fairness’ principle includes a proposal that ‘regulators should seek to address societal inequalities within their scope of influence’. As your work in this area progresses, we believe that it is important to clearly define what this might mean in practice, to ensure that the implementation of this principle remains proportionate and within a regulators remit. Regulators can and should play a role in addressing inequalities when there is a clear link to the scope of their statutory functions. For example, we have supported the aims of the GMC’s work to reduce the disproportionate referrals of some groups of registrants. However, we are concerned that framing this broadly to encourage anything within the regulators ‘scope of influence’ may encourage activities distant to their statutory duties, distracting regulators from their primary responsibilities to deliver proportionate, efficient, and fair regulation.

We would also welcome further clarification on how the newly proposed principle interacts with the existing principle that regulation should be ‘Targeted: Regulation should focus on the problem and minimise side effects’. We believe there may be some uncertainty around this.

Finally, we would like to suggest an additional principle for consideration – ‘Efficiency’. A consistent concern that we see firsthand from our members is the impact that lengthy, protracted regulatory investigations have on them. In our recent surveys, 91% of doctors and 96% of dentists said that investigations by their regulator caused stress and anxiety. 69% of doctors and 82% of dentists also told us that the length of the investigation itself impacted on their mental wellbeing the most.

Currently, none of the existing or proposed principles of good regulation fully address the need for timely, efficient and communicative processes to minimise the impact on registrants. We feel this is a key principle that underpins good regulation, and proportionate and effective responses.

Once again, we appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the review of the Right-touch Regulation framework. We look forward to continuing to engage with this work as it progresses.

About MPS

MPS is the world’s leading protection organisation for doctors, dentists and healthcare professionals with more than 300,000 members around the world. 

Our in-house experts assist with the wide range of legal and ethical problems that arise from professional practice. This can include clinical negligence claims, complaints, medical and dental council inquiries, legal and ethical dilemmas, disciplinary procedures, inquests and fatal accident inquiries.

MPS is not an insurance company. We are a mutual non-for-profit organisation and the benefits of membership of MPS are discretionary as set out in the Memorandum of Articles of Association.

Contact

Should you require further information about any aspects of our response to this consultation, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Megan Bennett
Policy and Public Affairs Manager
[email protected]