Allied health is now a registered profession: 57 vocations must enrol, and retrain 15 hours a year

For years, "paramedical" was the part of healthcare with no register behind it. The National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions has closed that gap: under the Registration of Allied and Healthcare Professionals Regulations, 2026, practising in these roles without being on a register is no longer a matter of individual employer trust.

Who has to register

57 professions across 10 broad disciplines, among them physiotherapists, occupational therapists, medical laboratory technologists, radiology and imaging technologists, optometrists, dieticians and nutritionists, and psychologists. Enrolment is on the state register, which feeds the central register. Clinical psychologists already registered with the Rehabilitation Council of India are exempt.

What it costs you in time

• Registration is valid for five years, then renewed.
• 15 hours of continuing professional development every year, which is 75 hours across the five-year cycle.
• At most half of that CPD may be done online; the rest has to be in person.
• State councils have one month to approve or reject an application.

The provision for people already in the job

Practitioners working in these roles without the prescribed qualification can seek provisional registration and complete a bridge course to become fully qualified. That is the regulation's honest acknowledgement that a large part of this workforce was trained on the job, and it is the clause that decides whether the rules regularise those workers or push them out.

If you are a student in one of these courses

Ask two questions of any college you are considering: is the programme recognised for registration under the Commission, and does the institution run or host CPD that will count towards your 15 hours later? A B.Sc. in a lab or imaging discipline that does not lead to a register entry is now a much weaker qualification than it looked last year. Gujarat's allied-health and nursing seats are being filled through the state's centralised counselling right now, which makes this the season to check, not next year.

Grounds for removal from the register, such as misrepresentation and breaches of professional standards, are being framed in separate ethics regulations that are out for public consultation.

CareerBox News Desk, reporting on the Registration of Allied and Healthcare Professionals Regulations, 2026, notified by the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions. Official portal: ncahp.abdm.gov.in. Dates and eligibility change; confirm them on the official portal before you act.