Health professional or healthcare professional

[sarawilcox]

We've never documented an agreed position on these terms.

• "health professional": easier to understand and possibly includes a wider variety of NHS staff
• "healthcare professional": more formal and specific to doctors, nurses, consultants as well as allied HCPs

We mention "health professionals" in many content guide entries, e.g. our entries for "doctor" and "GP". But we also have examples of "healthcare professional".

We have an entry for "healthcare team". And we talk about "healthcare staff", which includes GP practice staff.

We have more instances of "health professional" on the NHS website than "healthcare professional".

Discussed at July 2024 Style Council meeting but we did not make a decision. Decided we need more user insight.
Sara to discuss with App team and with 111 Online.

[sarawilcox]

Some comments from Style Council meeting

Some orgs use “healthcare professional.” Others tend to avoid using healthcare professional, more clunky. “Health professional” is shorter.

NHS talks a lot about health and doesn’t include care, although it’s a sector that’s part of our plans. At NHSX they used to use ‘health’ and ‘care’ instead of “healthcare”.

There is a question about which professions are registered NHS professionals and whether “healthcare professional” distinguishes these. NHS professionals tend to use the term “healthcare professional” (HCPs). Nutritionists, for example, refer to themselves as health professionals. Does healthcare refer to people in charge of your care, more professional? Does “health professionals” take in too broad a range of professions? (What about gym coach as a health professional?) Does (de)professionalization play a part here?

Context is important – “healthcare professional” may be more important for a professional audience

NHS App use healthcare professional when we don’t know which, eg. Doctor, nurse, physio etc. How/when do we use this, just to avoid listing out too many roles? We should be specific if when we can. But we can't list 10 professions - and need a blanket term

111OL did some very quick research some time ago and people were very unsure about what a healthcare professional was. Action: Sara to contact 111 team for more info

HCP is widely used acronym

Might be worth looking at this NHS England » Allied health professionals job planning: a best practice guide

What do users understand and what are we trying to communicate? Do users need to understand that one is an NHS clinician and the other isn’t? (E.g. registered dietitian versus nutritionist?) Many users wouldn’t see any difference in nuance.