Texas HSC Chapter 331
Who Must Serve on a Chapter 331 WVP Committee
Texas HSC Chapter 331 requires a workplace violence prevention committee with specific members: an RN providing direct care, a physician providing direct care, and a security-services employee if any and if practicable.
Texas HSC Chapter 331 requires a workplace violence prevention committee that must include a registered nurse who provides direct patient care. It must also include a physician who provides direct patient care (the only exemption is for a home and community support services agency with no such physician on staff), and a security-services employee if the facility employs any and if practicable. The committee may be an existing committee the facility re-authorizes.
The committee is the governance engine of a Chapter 331 program: it owns the plan, reviews incident data, and delivers the annual evaluation to the board. Its composition is an easy detail to get wrong. This article details who must serve, how the physician and security seats work, and what documentation a surveyor opens to verify it. For the full statute, see Texas SB 240 explained and our main guide, Texas SB 240 & HSC Chapter 331 compliance.
#The required membership
Chapter 331 names three member categories. Two are mandatory (the physician seat has one narrow exemption for home and community support services agencies, or HCSSAs); one is conditional on whether the facility employs people in that role.
| Member category | Required? | The condition |
|---|---|---|
| Registered nurse providing direct patient care | Mandatory | Every covered facility must seat an RN who provides direct care. |
| Physician providing direct patient care | Mandatory | Every covered facility must seat one, whether employed, contracted, or independent. Only exemption: an HCSSA with no such physician on staff (§331.002(c)). |
| Security-services employee | Conditional | Required only if a facility employee provides security services, and only if practicable. |
(Source: Texas HSC Chapter 331; SB 240, 88th Leg., 2023.)
#The RN-providing-direct-care seat is non-negotiable
This seat is straightforward for a surveyor to verify, and easy to mis-fill. The statute is specific: a registered nurse who provides direct patient care, not a nurse executive who left the floor years ago, not a quality director with an RN license who no longer treats patients. The point is to keep a frontline clinical voice on the committee that shapes the plan. Document the member's role so it is clear the person actually provides direct care.
#The physician seat is required, whatever the employment arrangement
A physician licensed in Texas who provides direct care to the facility's patients must serve at every covered facility. Many hospitals work primarily with independent or contracted physicians rather than employed ones; that does not remove the seat, because a direct-care physician fills it whether employed, contracted, or independent. The only statutory exemption, §331.002(c), is for an HCSSA with no such physician on staff, so document that fact if your agency relies on it.
#The security-services seat is conditional on employment
A security-services employee, by contrast, must serve if the facility employs any and if practicable. This is the one place "security" appears in Chapter 331's committee rule, and it is strictly a committee-membership requirement; it does not turn the WVP program into a guarding operation. If a facility contracts its security function rather than employing it, the seat may not be required; document the arrangement either way.
A note on scope: the security-services seat is about having an environment-of-care perspective at the table, not about staffing guards. A compliant WVP program is a documentation and preparedness program, not a private-security service.
#You can re-authorize an existing committee
Chapter 331 does not force you to create a brand-new body. A facility may designate an existing committee (an environment-of-care committee, a safety committee, or similar) to serve as the WVP committee, provided it is formally authorized for that purpose and includes the required member categories.
If you take this route, the paper trail matters. A surveyor will want to see:
- A charter or authorizing resolution that explicitly assigns the WVP function to the committee.
- A membership roster that maps each person to a required category (and your RN's direct-care role).
- Appointment documentation for the named members.
#What a surveyor reviews
A Texas HHSC licensing surveyor verifies committee composition through documents, not assertions. The records they open:
- The committee charter / authorization naming the WVP function.
- The membership roster, with each required category accounted for.
- Appointment letters for the RN and the physician, and for the security-services member where one is seated.
- Meeting minutes for the trailing twelve months, proving the committee actually convenes and acts.
The committee deficiencies to watch for are a missing required member category and no minutes proving the committee meets. A committee that exists on paper but never convenes cannot demonstrate the annual evaluation, which is itself a statutory obligation; see the Chapter 331 annual plan evaluation.
#How to stand the committee up correctly
- Confirm your physician and security seats. Identify a physician who provides direct care to your patients (employed, contracted, or independent), and determine whether you employ security-services personnel; document the answer either way.
- Seat a true direct-care RN and capture their direct-care role in the appointment record.
- Charter the committee (new or re-authorized) with an explicit WVP mandate.
- Issue appointment letters for each required member.
- Set a meeting cadence and minute every session, so the trailing-twelve-months record always exists.
Facilities that want this done turnkey use our policy and plan development service, which drafts the committee charter and Chapter 331-compliant appointment letters, or the full workplace violence prevention program, which stands up the committee, facilitates and minutes the first meeting, and assembles the survey-readiness binder. To self-check first, the Chapter 331 compliance checklist includes the committee-composition line items.
The committee is small to assemble but easy to get wrong on the details. Anchor it on a genuine direct-care RN, resolve the physician and security seats deliberately, and keep minutes, and the committee is built to hold up at a licensure survey.
Sources: Texas Health & Safety Code Chapter 331 (SB 240, 88th Leg., 2023); 26 TAC §505.55; HHSC Provider Letter PL 2024-10. This article is general compliance information, not legal advice.