Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners (JCCP) update

The Joint Council for Cosmetic Practitioners (JCCP) has issued a release announcing its technology partners for its practitioner and education and training registers and for patient data collection. The JCCP is a newly proposed ‘self-regulating’ body for the non-surgical aesthetics industry in England formed after the publication by the Government of its policy on regulation in the sector in January 2016.

The primary aim of the JCCP is to provide a mechanism that can enable the public to clearly identify safe practitioners across all non-surgical aesthetic treatments.

Since January 2016 the Interim Chair of the JCCP - Professor David Sines CBE, has consulted with multiple industry stakeholders, professionals and technical advisers engaged in developing:

• Educational, Clinical and Practice based Professional Standards – in conjunction with the independent Cosmetic Practice Standards Authority – CPSA.

• Governance arrangements

• Education, Training and Accreditation Principles and Frameworks

• Premises standards

• A Register of JCCP Approved Practitioners (subject to PSA Accreditation)

• A Register of JCCP Approved Education, Training and Accreditation partners.

The development phase is now concluding with a formal launch of the JCCP and CPSA planned for later in 2017.

Agreement on the type, structure and format of the JCCP Registers

The JCCP will operate two registers, each underpinned by an explicit set of standards and supported by specific entry requirements:

Register 1: List of approved education, training and accreditation providers

Register 2: Annotated list of JCCP Registered Practitioners who meet the education, clinical and practice based standards agreed by the JCCP/CPSA. The register is divided into two parts:

• Those persons delivering non-surgical treatments registered with Professional Statutory Bodies (PSRB’s) – General Medical Council (GMC). Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), General Dental Council (GDC), General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and the Health Care Professionals Council (HCPC).

• Those persons delivering non-surgical treatments not registered with the PSRB’s who fully meet the JCCP standards and who are required to work under supervision and oversight of a clinical professional for Level 6 and 7 treatments.

Procurement of Contract Partners to develop and manage the JCCP Practitioner and Education and Training Registers and the collection of ‘Patient Activity Data’

 The JCCP has undertaken an open, thorough and transparent procurement process to identify potential contractors who wish to work with the JCCP. The key priorities were to develop and operate a technology platform and website to manage the JCCP Practitioner and Education and Training Registers and to collect critical patient-related data to help understand the level of risk involved in the many treatments now being offered under the banner of ‘non-surgical aesthetic practice’. The JCCP received nine ‘Expressions of Interest’ that led to the consideration of three detailed submissions.

The JCCP Procurement Panel made up of 7 professional and patient JCCP and CPSA approved experts from the sector is delighted to announce that it has agreed to enter formal contract negotiations with two of the parties who submitted bids.

The Procurement Panel determined to divide the contract into two equal parts:

1. Management of the technology platform for the Practitioner and Education and Training Registers

The JCCP is expecting its Practitioner Register to be attractive to many clinical and non-clinical aesthetic practitioners who fully meet the JCCP and CPSA requisite competence, conduct and practice standards. To transact, deliver and maintain its Register the JCCP requires the provision of a sophisticated technology platform to enable these practitioners to register against a complex set of entry and revalidation requirements. This Register will provide transparent access to enable members of the public (and others) to search for information about the credentials and qualifications of practitioners against a newly developed set of universal education, training and practice standards for the sector (designed by and endorsed by the JCCP and the CPSA).

This contract will also include a secondary Register to record details of JCCP Approved Education and Training Providers/Accreditation Partners. It should be noted that the JCCP Practitioner Register will be the subject of a forthcoming PSA Accreditation exercise. This contract has been awarded to HF Resolution. HF Resolution Limited is a company which runs consumer redress schemes to the cosmetic and property industries under government licences and is part of a larger group of companies which have 20 years’ experience in the cosmetic industry.

HF Resolution managing director Tim Frome said, “We are delighted to be chosen as the preferred supplier to build and manage the technology platform which will be used to run the Practitioner and Education/Training JCCP registers. We will use our experience in building and running platforms suitable for managing high volume membership schemes to provide the best possible solution to the JCPP. We are fully engaged with the JCCP objectives and look forward to assisting the JCCP in achieving its core aims of improving standards and consumer confidence in the cosmetic industry”.

2. Collection of Patient and Treatment Data

The provision of non-surgical aesthetic treatments has grown rapidly to become a major activity in the UK. This growth in activity and the generation of new, or ‘orphan’ treatments, has been accompanied by significant variations in practice and concerns about safety and risk to patients. Although there is much anecdotal evidence of the occurrence of complications and adverse incidents no single or systematic co-ordinated framework exists to collect patient-related activity data, to collect adverse incident data, to undertake the thematic analysis of data or for end point for reporting.

The CPSA and the JCCP are delighted to announce that the contract to collect data on complications and adverse incidents has been awarded to Treatments you can Trust (TYCT) in partnership with Northgate Public Services.

Treatments you can Trust operate a PSA accredited ‘register of practitioners of injectable cosmetic interventions’. Northgate Public Services run services that support surgeons, providers, commissioners, regulators and manufacturers to continually improve patient outcomes. The National Joint Registry (NJR) which Northgate Public Services run on behalf of the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) is the largest of its kind in the world, holding the records of more than two million joint replacement procedures. The service has been instrumental in raising quality of care and improvements in outcomes from joint replacement surgery.

Peter Rottier, healthcare and innovation partnership director at Northgate Public Services said: “We welcome this opportunity to bring our experience of running registries in the non-surgical and surgical sectors to the project, ensuring that the CPSA, JCCP, practitioners and the public will have access to the information they need. We will work alongside the team at TYCT to deliver a data service that supports patient safety and aims to improve patient outcomes, as well as support the public with making informed choices.”

Sally Taber, director of Treatments you can Trust said: “We are delighted that ‘Treatments you can Trust’ (TYCT) has been selected in conjunction with Northgate Public Services to enter into formal contract negotiations with the JCCP/CPSA over the data collection role”.

Dr Andrew Vallance-Owen MBE, deputy chairman of Treatments You Can Trust Governance Group has been instrumental in the pilot studies already commenced in analysing data with the larger cosmetic providers whose practitioners are on the TYCT Register. He welcomes this development The JCCP and its sister standard setting body, the CPSA believe that it is essential to intervene to change this situation and to build a body of evidence relating to patient risk that can in turn be used to improve patient safety and experience. The requirement to identify a competent and capable technology provider to undertake these essential functions was underwritten into the JCCP procurement tender. This component of the tender, whilst being contractually accountable to the JCCP will primarily account to the CPSA on its operational function.

Status of the TYCT Register

After extensive discussion, it has been agreed that the existing TYCT PSA approved register will be integrated into the new JCCP Register - when it launches officially in November2017. This development has many advantages for the JCCP and TYCT, who share the same values and objectives on the accreditation of practitioners in the interests of patient safety and public protection.

The JCCP intends to assimilate the TYCT Register of practitioners in injectable cosmetics into the JCCP Register (once this is accredited by PSA) early in November 2017. JCCP and TYCT share the same values and objectives with regard to validation of practitioners on behalf of the public. This transfer of an existing and publicly trusted register has many advantages for the public. Further information on this proposed transfer will be provided during the coming weeks. The JCCP guarantees that every present and future practitioner on the TYCT Register will have the right of free automatic transfer to the JCCP Register. All transferring Registrants will be required to evidence full compliance with published JCCP/CPSA standards of proficiency and other associated entry requirements for JCCP Registration within two years of the date of their transfer to the new Register from TYCT (as will be the case for all Registrants).

From now until November, TYCT will continue to recruit practitioners to the TYCT register, and, in the public interest, the JCCP commends all practitioners who may be considering future registration to join the TYCT Register at this time.

Both technology partners will now enter into detailed contract negotiations with the JCCP in preparation for the formal opening of the JCCP Registers in November 2017.

Professor Sines said, “After an extensive open, independent and transparent procurement process the JCCP, with support from the CPSA, has selected HF Resolution, Northgate Public Services and Treatments you can Trust as its key technology partners. It is very reassuring that we can bring on board these hugely experienced partners with a long track record of activity and credibility in the non-surgical sector. The experience that our new Partners bring will be used by the JCCP and CPSA to ensure that the public will be able to access key information on line to assure them of the credibility, qualifications and fitness to practise of those practitioners from who they are receiving treatment. Such practitioners, will only be able to apply for entry to the Register when they have demonstrated compliance against a newly agreed set of educational, clinical and practice standards.

"The collection and analysis of patient-related activity data on patient treatments (and patient experience/effectiveness) will also be managed in a universal, co-ordinated and systematic way and as the data builds over time will in future provide the CPSA with a central point of data access against which the industry can clearly evaluate risk and determine how best to improve products, services, treatments, clinical standards and the training provided to practitioners to enable them to practise safely and effectively”.

Simon Withey from the Cosmetic Standards Practice Authority said, “The outcome of the register procurement exercise has resulted in a situation where the expertise of a number of well-established organisations has been recognised. Each of these organisations brings something different to the process and it is to the credit of the JCCP that these varied areas of expertise have been appreciated and that such a collaboration has been facilitated. I am particularly keen to see the establishment of a strong adverse incident reporting system, so that we can start to better understand the risk and efficacy of these treatments in the interests of public protection. I look forward to working with those from Treatments you can Trust/Northgate Public Services who have a long history of working to gather such patient-related activity information”.