The Medical Profession (Responsible Officer) Regulations came into force on 1 January 2011 and were amended on 1 April 2013 (The Medical Profession (Responsible Officers) (Amendment) Regulations 2013).

The regulations describe in detail the type of organisations which are designated bodies, which can be broadly summarised as:

• organisations that provide healthcare
• organisations that set standards and policy for the delivery of healthcare
• some specialist organisations who employ or contract with doctors.

All designated bodies have a duty to appoint or nominate a responsible officer and to support those doctors with whom they have a formal link (known in the regulations as a ‘prescribed connection’).

In this section you will find information relating to the organisational systems and processes that an responsible officer (RO) will need to have in place and have arrangements for:

• Information management
• Developing effective appraisal systems
• Responding to concerns
  
• National clinical audit resources (Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership)
• Information on how HR teams can support Responsible officers and how they can work together
• Processes and templates for making revalidation recommendations