Press Round-Up: Regulatory and Professional Discipline – March 2026

Healthcare

General Medical Council (GMC)

Consultation on legislation to reform professional healthcare regulation in the UK

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has announced a consultation on legislation to reform how the GMC regulates doctors, physician associates and anaesthesia associates across the UK.

The aim of the review is to overhaul and modernise the regulation to make the system faster, less bureaucratic and better equipped to protect both patients and NHS staff. The consultation will consider the following changes:

• The GMC to retain its existing right to appeal decisions made by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) to the Courts, ensuring there remains a robust check on fitness to practise outcomes.
• The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) — the body that oversees all healthcare regulators — will receive new powers to challenge interim decisions made by the MPTS, and the GMC will receive equivalent powers.
• Regulators will be required to share information with the PSA when requested, strengthening the PSA’s ability to scrutinise regulatory decisions and intervene where necessary.

The consultation also proposes removing the current rule which prevents regulators from being able to consider fitness to practise concerns involving allegations of historic sexual abuse after 5 years have passed.   

The GMC has welcomed the consultation.

Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)

NMC invests in specialist team to resolve sensitive fitness to practise cases

The Nursing and Midwifery Council is investing in a specialist Fitness to Practise team to ensure more timely resolution of sensitive cases, including those connected to major public inquiries into health and care failings.

The Sensitive and Complex Casework Team will provide specialised legal advice and support on complex cases at the Screening stage. This includes referrals arising from public inquiries, major regulatory or criminal investigations, neonatal or maternal deaths, and matters where coroners have made findings.

The NMC has said that the team’s enhanced oversight and expertise ensure the right decisions are made at the earliest stage of the FtP to progress cases swiftly and safely. The team is to be expanded over coming months with new investigators and legal experts.

It is also expected that the new team will help reduce caseloads and pressure on other teams at the Screening and Investigations stages, while minimising the need to commission external investigations.

The NMC says it will also support faster, consistent decision-making, so that the FtP process is more efficient and fairer for registrants.

General Dental Council (GDC)

GDC publishes dentists’ working patterns data for 2026

The GDC has published new data into dentists working patterns. This data reveals a fifth of dentists are providing private only dental care. A further 14% of dentists say they work predominantly (more than 75% of their time) in private care.

The GDC has said: "The data provides important insights into working hours, practice settings, employment arrangements and the balance between NHS and private provision. We are confident that these findings will support strategic planning by health services, governments and dental providers, and ultimately, help patients receive the care they need”.

General Optical Council (GOC)

GOC meets all PSA Standards of Good Regulation for fourth consecutive year

On 3 March 2026, the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) published its review of the GOC’s performance in 2024-2025. For the fourth year in a row, the GOC has met all 18 of the PSA’s Standards of Good Regulation.

In particular, the PSA noted that the GOC’s average timeframes in fitness to practise investigations remains some of the best among the health and social care regulators. The GOC says it is continuing to work to maintain and improve the timeliness of its fitness to practise cases further in line with its commitment to its fitness to practise improvement plan.

General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)

GPHC publishes new acceptance criteria

The GPhC has published new acceptance criteria, with clearer guidance now being given on how concerns about pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and registered pharmacies are assessed. The new criteria clarify what concerns may be referred for an investigation into an individual’s fitness to practise or considered for potential inspection or enforcement action.

Last year the GPhC received over 7,500 concerns; the highest number in its history. The GPhC says its new approach should strengthen patient safety and transparency but also reduce the number of concerns received that fall outside of its regulatory remit.

 

Legal

Solicitors Regulations Authority (SRA)

SRA sets out priorities for change

The SRA has shared its 2026 priorities for change. The key focus is on fixing foundations and rebuilding trust with both the public and the profession. The SRA acknowledges that it has not always met expectations on delivery, with slow casework and a tendency to be too reactive.

The SRA says it will be focusing on operational excellence, improving collaboration and proactively identifying and focusing on big issues so that it can tackle issues at pace. The SRA aims to do this by cutting investigation times, refocusing on core issues, encouraging compliance rather than relying on enforcement and undertaking proactive work to mitigate risks to consumers, rather than higher-cost interventions that occur later.

In practical terms, the SRA is expanding its executive team, looking at changes to its culture and undertaking a comprehensive review of its casework process.  The SRA also intends to launch a new rapid risk assessment and strategic risk assessment and launching an intensive supervision pilot to find new tools and techniques to reduce harm.

The SRA says that these changes, being actioned in 2026, will form the foundation for their new three-year corporate strategy. This will be consulted on later this year and the final strategy launched in 2027.

 

Finance

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

FCA announces new incident and third party reporting rules

The FCA is publishing new rules, which will come into force in March 2027, to provide greater clarity on what to report and what information to provide when dealing with disruption such as a cyber attack of power outage.

In 2025, over 40% of cyber incidents reported to the FCA involved a third party and there have been several recent high-profile incidents impacting the financial services sector including the Cloudflare and AWS outage. The FCA says that clear and timely reporting will help them identify risks and respond effectively.

The FCA says it has:

• Created a simple, streamlined reporting regime with the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Bank of England including a single reporting portal.
• Removed duplicative incident reporting for payment service providers and credit rating agencies.
• Refined the overall information required, allowing most of the firms they solo regulate to complete a short form to tell the FCA about their incident.
• Added clearer guidance on thresholds, definitions and responsibilities.  

As well as updating the Rules, the FCA is publishing updated guidance for both incident reporting and third party reporting.

 

Built Environment

Architects Registration Board (ARB)

ARB publishes five year strategy

In February, published a new five-year strategy focused on improving safety, strengthening professional competence and improving workplace culture among architects in the UK.  The strategy sets out how ARB will continue to address the findings of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry and raise standards, improve accountability and increase public confidence in architects.

By 2030, ARB will:

• Raise standards of future architects
• Drive competence across the profession
• Improve culture and behaviour
• Deliver modern, effective and efficient regulation

The new strategy has been published alongside a Business Plan for 2026, both of which are available to read on the ARB website here.

Building Safety Regulator (BSR)

BSR becomes standalone body in step towards single construction regulator

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has, as of late January, officially moved to being a standalone organisation, paving the way for the creation of a single construction regulator, which was  a key recommendation of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.  

The move from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to an arm’s-length body under the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, represents a significant moment for the built environment. 

Originally established in 2021 in response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy, BSR’s full powers came into force under the Building Safety Act 2022.  As a new organisation, BSR will work towards establishing a single regulator by promoting competence and higher standards. It says it will drive the “vital culture change required by everyone working in the built environment to support this government’s ambition to build more, safe homes, and remediate those which are unsafe”.