To bring in uniform standards in the healthcare segments by making registration mandatory for all clinical establishments from one-doctor clinics to tertiary hospitals, the central government has revived the plans to pilot the much-awaited Clinical Establishment Registration Regulation Bill. The government's move comes close on the heels of setting up the National Council for Clinical Establishments.

The Bill, originally scheduled to be introduced in 2005 as Clinical Establishments (Regulation and Accreditation) Bill, has been put in the cold storage for long. The policy makers in the Health Ministry are learnt to be giving final touches to it, thus raising hopes of long-awaited regulation in the healthcare segment.

The move comes after several state governments, Karnataka being the latest in the list, have passed similar laws and the Planning Commission has also specifically favoured carrying forward the Bill at the earliest. The Centre has recently set up the National Council for Clinical Establishments, one of the key proposals in the Bill.

Meanwhile, an expert committee headed by the director general of health services, is also finalizing a set of norms called as Indian Public Health Standards which will be coming into effect soon, Health Ministry sources said.

The Bill seeks to make it mandatory for all clinical establishments including nursing homes, hospitals, diagnostic labs and one-doctor clinics to get registered and provisions for the same would be intended even through online, besides setting up a national council as apex body.

It will endorse mandatory structures like formatting, cleanliness and recording pattern right (for facilities ranging) from five-bed to 5,000-bed hospitals. It will provide for registering authority, a medical professional, in each district, besides the upper tiers at the State and the national levels. The Act will also have provisions for punitive actions.

The Planning Commission, in its approach paper for the 11th Plan, has recommended a central legislation for registration of clinical establishments. But it was against linking compliance of standards at least for the initial years with the registration.

"Uniform standards need to be developed for the entire country. These standards should not focus on infrastructure alone, but also on service delivery. The registration of medical professionals needs o be periodically updated. Additionally acquisition of higher qualifications should require re-registration. National registers of all medical and paramedical personnel need to be created,'' the Planning Commission said.

It also called for setting up of a National Paramedical Council to regulate paramedical education and service delivery. The Panel suggested that accreditation of health institutions should be voluntary, but must be encouraged by the centre and the states. It also favoured created of a national body to oversee the functioning of various accreditation agencies in the field.

"Provisions need to be made in the 11th Plan for facilitating development of minimum standards and also for setting up an oversight body for accrediting agencies in the health sector,'' the report said.