The Allied Health Professions Council is clamping down on unlicensed health practitioners and health facilities with expired licences in efforts to ensure public safety.

The council warns that violators will face consequences, including the closure of their facilities for non-compliance.

Facility managers are also tasked with enforcing oversight of professionals allowed to provide services to patients.

Across the country, healthcare providers in diagnostic, preventive, therapeutic, and rehabilitative areas are mandated to conduct their services with appropriate authorisation by the governing professional body, the Allied Health Professions Council.

However, some therapists, radiographers, medical laboratory technicians, dietitians, and pharmacists continue to work on the blind side of the council, without licences.

Acting Registrar of the Allied Health Professions Council, Daniel Atta-Nyarko, has cautioned against non-compliance with standard practice.

“This is a caution; members and people working in the allied health professional areas without a licence or an expired licence, we are coming and we will close the facility. We have an office at SSNIT in Kumasi, and you can register or renew your PIN.

“We have conducted some assessment and inspection, and we sounded a caution. This time, we are being strict and brutal. We entreat facilities and management to provide oversight over their staff and ensure they are from a credible membership,” he said.

Experts from physiotherapy, optometry, occupational therapy, podiatry and virtual dietetic services joined the Allied Health Professions Council in their monitoring and inspection exercise in Kumasi.

The aim is to instil standard practice and ensure patients' safety.

Daniel Atta-Nyarko explained that the exercise will ensure members provide essential care with diligence.

He says the Council will not renege on its supervisory mandate.

“As a regulatory body, it is our mandate to ensure public safety. We are here to look at our members working in public spaces to ascertain if they are in good standing within our standards to ensure that safe services are being provided.

“We have gone beyond whether they have licences. We have involved professionals in the various skills they are working on. So aside from the licence, we checked if what they are doing is the standard service,“ he said.