A new report published RSPH and the Professional Standards Authority has revealed the extent to which practitioners on accredited registers – an 80,000 strong workforce including counsellors, acupuncturists, and sports therapists – are able to contribute to addressing the growing public health crises in the UK.

Untapped Resources: Accredited Registers in the Wider Workforce, which is based on a survey of more than 4,500 practitioners in the accredited registers (AR) workforce, found both a willingness and ability to promote the public’s health through healthy lifestyle conversations and effective signposting with patients. However, despite the vast majority of the AR workforce (89%) considering their job role to include “promoting the public’s health”, three quarters of them (74%) feel under-utilised in doing so.

The key recommendations of the report include:

• Public health teams to create and regularly update a list of services bringing all local signposting information together, and disseminate this to AR practitioners.
• AR practitioners to have authority to make direct NHS referrals, in appropriate cases, thereby reducing the administrative burden on GP surgeries.
• Accredited registers to consider introducing a standardised health assessment tool to be used with new patients.

Shirley Cramer CBE, Chief Executive of RSPH and Chair of the Government’s Advisory Group, People in UK Public Health, said: “The public health challenges facing the UK today are deep-seated, varied, and of increasing cost to the NHS. It’s vital that we continue to make progress on such health priorities as obesity and smoking, but to do this we must increase the capacity of those willing to support the public’s health. The AR workforce has a willingness and is well placed to join the wider public health workforce, and numbering 80,000 is now twice the size of the UK’s core public health workforce.

“We know that AR practitioners typically take a holistic approach to wellbeing, and develop long term and trusted relationships with their patients, putting them in an ideal position to have lifestyle health conversations with them. The AR workforce accounts for thousands of interactions with members of the public every day: we are calling for these practitioners to be given the right support, so that we can unleash their full potential to improve the public’s health.”

Harry Cayton, Chief Executive of the Professional Standards Authority, said: “The AR programme is now well-established within the regulatory framework, providing independent assurance of registers covering a diverse and engaged workforce. There is huge potential for this workforce to contribute to individual wellbeing and public health objectives, such as weight loss, stopping smoking and taking exercise.

“It is vitally important that GPs, nurses and other healthcare professionals who work in the community are aware of the potential for the AR workforce to further contribute to promoting the public’s health so that they are able to make better use of this existing resource.”