To assist the public in choosing healthcare services, the Department of Health (DH) has launched the Accredited Registers Scheme for Healthcare Professions (AR Scheme) to accredit eligible professional organisations in certain healthcare professions which are currently not subject to statutory registration to administer the registers for their professions with a view to ensuring the governance of the professional bodies. Only those healthcare professionals meeting the prescribed standards set by the organisations concerned could join as members and be listed on those accredited registers.

To date, DH has accredited the registers of five healthcare professions, includingspeech therapists, audiologists, dietitians, educational psychologists and clinical psychologists. Five accredited healthcare professional organisations (the accredited organisations) are permitted to use the Accreditation Mark (as illustrated)，and their members are permitted to use the title “[Profession] in Accredited Registeron their name cards for public recognition.

Benefits of choosing members of accredited registers to provide services:

• the accredited organisations have been assessed against a set of robust standards, and are committed to safeguarding public health, managing the register of their profession, and ensuring that members are professionally fit for practice; and
• members of the accredited organisations have met educational and training requirements as well as prescribed standards.

DH, relevant government departments and the Hospital Authority have included registration with the accredited organisations as one of the priority considerations in the recruitment for positions of the relevant healthcare professions. Also, with effect from April 2023, the Government has extended the scope of the Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme to include primary healthcare services provided by four categories1 of healthcare profession under the AR Scheme; and has expanded the scope of healthcare professionals who can access health data on eHealth to include the members of accredited registers for healthcare professions².

Colleagues seeking services from the above healthcare professionals may search the list of accredited organisations via the AR Scheme website (https://www.ars.gov.hk) and look up the relevant registers.