HCPC Registration Check: A Guide for Allied Health Agencies

It is 7.40 on a Monday morning and a hospital trust needs a physiotherapist on a respiratory ward by 9. You have a locum who can go, her file looks complete, and the booking is confirmed. Then someone asks the obvious question: when did we last look her up on the HCPC Register? If the answer is "when she registered with us eighteen months ago", you have a problem, because an allied health professional whose registration has lapsed cannot lawfully practise under a protected title, and the trust will hold your agency responsible for sending them.

An HCPC registration check is one of the simplest checks in allied health recruitment. It takes a minute or two on the HCPC website. The difficulty is not doing it once; it is doing it at the right moments for every physio, radiographer, paramedic, OT and speech and language therapist on your books, recording what you found, and spotting lapses before a shift rather than after an incident.

This is part 1 of our UK Document Explainers series. In this guide we cover what the HCPC regulates, how to run an HCPC register search properly, what to record on the candidate file, and how an allied health professional agency can catch lapses before they turn into a compliance finding.

What the HCPC regulates and why agencies must check

The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) regulates 15 professions in the UK. Each one has its own part of the Register and a short profession code that appears at the start of the registration number:

Protected titles

The titles used by these professions, such as "physiotherapist", "radiographer" or "paramedic", are protected titles. Only people on the HCPC Register can use them. If a candidate's registration has lapsed, been suspended or been removed, they cannot work under that title, regardless of their experience or how good they were on their last assignment.

Why the check sits with the agency

NHS trusts and private providers expect agencies to have verified professional registration before a worker arrives. The NHS Employment Check Standards treat professional registration as a core pre-employment check, and frameworks used for AHP locum compliance usually require evidence that registration was checked at onboarding and kept under review. Your client will rarely re-check every booking themselves. They rely on your file.

How to run an HCPC register search

The HCPC's online Register is free and public. You do not need an account, and the result is the primary source: a copy of a certificate the candidate sends you is not a substitute.

Step by step

• Go to the "Check the Register" page on the HCPC website.
• Select the candidate's profession from the drop-down list.
• Enter the registration number (for example a PH number for a physiotherapist) or the candidate's surname.
• Run the search and open the matching entry.

Searching by registration number is better than searching by name. Names are shared, change on marriage and get misspelled. A registration number points to one person. Ask every candidate for their number at application and store it in a dedicated field, not buried in a CV.

Reading the result

A clean result shows the candidate as Registered with no conditions or cautions. Check these points every time:

• The name matches the candidate's identity documents (allowing for a documented name change).
• The profession matches the role you are booking. A registered OT cannot fill a physio shift.
• Any conditions of practice or cautions shown on the entry. These appear on the same page with a link to more detail.
• Any annotations, which show additional entitlements such as supplementary or independent prescribing. If a role requires prescribing, the annotation must be there.

If the candidate does not appear, or appears with restrictions, stop the booking and escalate to your compliance lead before anything else happens.

What to record on the candidate file

A check you cannot evidence is, for audit purposes, a check you did not do. Your record should let an auditor or a trust's compliance team see exactly what you looked at and when.

The minimum record

Save a dated screenshot or printout of the Register entry to the candidate record in your ATS. A note saying "HCPC OK" without a date or evidence will not stand up in a framework audit.

Supporting documents to collect alongside

The Register check proves current registration, but a complete AHP file usually includes more. Expect to collect qualification certificates, an up-to-date CV with a full employment history, references covering recent clinical work, a DBS certificate at the appropriate level, occupational health clearance, mandatory training certificates and Right to Work evidence. Each of those needs chasing, checking and filing too.

Catching HCPC lapses before a shift

Most HCPC problems are not misconduct. They are administrative: a candidate forgot to renew, a direct debit failed, or they did not complete the renewal declaration in time. The HCPC renews each profession on a two-year cycle, and each profession renews at a different point in the calendar. Check the HCPC website for the renewal window that applies to each profession you place.

Build checks into your process

• At registration: check the Register before the candidate is cleared for work.
• Before the first booking with a new client: many trusts expect a recent check on file.
• Around renewal windows: re-check every candidate in that profession once the renewal deadline has passed. A candidate who was registered last month may not be registered now.
• On a regular cycle: many agencies re-check active AHPs monthly or before each new assignment. Set a frequency that matches your framework requirements and stick to it.

Ask for renewal confirmation early

Before a profession's renewal deadline, contact your active candidates and ask them to confirm they have renewed. Most will have. The few who have not get a reminder while there is still time to fix it, rather than discovering the lapse when a trust phones you about a cancelled shift.

What to do if registration has lapsed

Remove the candidate from bookings immediately and tell any affected clients. Do not allow them to work in an unregistered capacity under a different job title to fill the gap unless your client has explicitly agreed and the role genuinely does not require registration. Once they are restored to the Register, re-check, record the new entry and clear them again.

Taking the admin out of AHP compliance

The Register check itself is quick. What eats a compliance team's week is everything around it: chasing candidates for registration numbers, qualification certificates, training records and references, then checking each file and attaching it to the right record.

This is where GettingDocs helps. Amy, our AI assistant, chases candidates for their documents on WhatsApp and email, sent from your agency's own domain and written in your agency's voice. When a document arrives, Amy checks it is readable and is the document you asked for, rejects blurred photos, cut-off pages and wrong documents, and chases again. Accepted documents are filed straight onto the candidate's record in your ATS, matched by record ID, email or phone, never by name. You can see how this works for healthcare agencies at GettingDocs for UK healthcare staffing, and check which ATS integrations are live at our ATS page.

Key takeaways

• An HCPC registration check confirms an AHP can legally use their protected title. Do it on the HCPC Register, not from a certificate the candidate sends.
• Search by registration number and profession, and check status, conditions, cautions and annotations every time.
• Record the date, the result, who checked and a screenshot of the entry on the candidate's ATS record.
• Re-check after each profession's renewal window and on a regular cycle, so lapses are caught before a shift.
• Automate the chasing of the supporting documents so your team can focus on the checks that need judgement.

If your team spends more time chasing AHP paperwork than placing candidates, book a call with GettingDocs and we will show you how Amy handles the chasing for you.

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Please note: this article is general information, not legal advice, and was correct at the time of writing (October 2026). Rules and guidance change, so please check the latest guidance from the Health and Care Professions Council before relying on it.