physiotherapy regulation

It has been announced that the medical profession is now to have external regulation. Perhaps we should be asking "what took you so long?" The allied health professions have been regulated by the Health Professions Council (HPC) for a number of years and before that by the CPSM. It seems strange that doctors have remained under their own regulation for so long depite the fact that quite a few years have passed since the the terrible events which led to plans for regulation (Harold Shipman, organ scandals and so on). As with the allied health professions, the principle of regulation is a sound one but the application of the principle is full of difficulties. The HPC takes disproportionate amounts of fees from those it regulates and shows signs of serious inefficiencies. Examples include having to repeat a physiotherapy office election due to mistakes in the election process, delaying of registration renewal of those on the register and lack of accountability. And this last point is key. Who regulates the regulator and to whom are they accountable?