Evaluate the role of statutory professional regulators in ensuring quality of healthcare in a federal set-up.

Statutory professional regulators set entry standards, keep registers of practitioners and discipline misconduct. The National Medical Commission regulates doctors, and the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions (NCAHP) was created under Act No. 14 of 2021 [2]. Public health is a State subject, while professions and education fall in the Concurrent List. So regulators can secure quality of care only when the Centre and the States work together.

Role in ensuring quality

• Setting standards: NCAHP's mandate covers standards of education and services and the assessment of institutions [2]. It spans 56 professions grouped into 10 categories [3].
• Registration and accountability: The Act provides for a Central Register and State Registers [2]. The 2026 draft norms bring existing practitioners in through provisional registration. They can then move to regular registration through bridge courses, supervised clinical training or exams [1].
• Uniformity and transparency: An integrated online system to verify credentials reduces official discretion and differences between states [1].
• Livelihood with safety: Semi-formally trained technicians can upgrade their skills without losing their jobs [1].

Limitations in the federal context

• Implementation gap: The Supreme Court recorded that only 14 of 28 states had set up State Councils [4]. In the rest, no body verifies certificates, so the law exists only on paper.
• Courts had to step in: Implementation needed directions in Joint Forum of Medical Technologists of India v. Union of India [4], which shows executive inertia.
• A register is not a regulator: The Parliamentary Standing Committee recommended autonomous ethics boards [5]. Without them, nobody can act on complaints or strike practitioners off the register.
• Back-door risk: Patients cannot see who is only provisionally registered. Without a time limit, the provisional stage may become permanent.
• Gaps in training: Entry into training courses is still loosely controlled. The Committee recommended a common entrance test [5].

Verdict

Statutory regulators are necessary for quality healthcare because they turn an unregulated workforce into an identifiable, accountable one. But they are only as effective as the weakest State council. The way forward:

• set up all State councils within a fixed deadline;
• put a time limit on provisional registration and show it clearly on the public register;
• create working ethics boards;
• build one interoperable national database so no one can register twice.

Such cooperative federalism in regulation would support the right to health under Article 21 and SDG 3.c on strengthening the health workforce.