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Health and Social Care Bill

Will the noble Earl accept that, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, said, clinical physiologists, and in particular clinical neurophysiologists, have been aware for years that they have produced a very satisfactory standard of voluntary regulation and registration? They have been talking about the possibility of achieving statutory regulation for years. It has been hinted at by Government after Government. They now feel very strongly that the failure of Governments to accept their need for statutory regulation is, in a sense, a kind of downgrading of the status of their respective professions alongside other professions of individuals who work with patients which are regulated by the Health Professions Council: physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and many more. They feel that it is in fact a mark of a lack of respect by the Government that they are being refused statutory registration.