80,000 consulted to challenge Government plans
The British Psychological Society is working as part of a group of
eight professional bodies consulting all of their 80,000 members to
oppose the government’s plans for statutory regulation of their
professions.
Ray Miller, President of The British Psychological Society, said: "All
of us believe that the government proposals would lead to poorer
protection for the public. We have been forced to develop an
alternative approach to how we might be statutorily regulated because
the government is still proposing plans that all of us believe would
lead to a weakening of the existing standards of protection".
The group of eight bodies cover psychology, psychotherapy, counselling,
education, business, and sports science. Together they are developing a
stronger, more-focussed model for a new independent regulator, because
they strongly oppose the Department of Health’s proposals for
regulation through the Health Professions Council (HPC) as it is
currently constituted. They believe the proposals are flawed,
unworkable and will not protect the public from charlatans and
under-skilled practitioners.
The government’s plans are contained within a consultation document
called the Foster Review (of non medical regulation). Although the HPC
route is not definitive policy it is stated as the ‘preferred method of
regulation’. Ray Miller continued: "this is despite the fact that the
organisations in this field have already responded to an earlier
government consultation document on the statutory regulation of applied
psychologists [spring 2005] and made it quite clear that regulation
through the HPC would be totally inadequate to oversee the complex and
diverse fields in which our members work, many outside health and the
NHS. Our only conclusion is that the government have ignored the
reasoned arguments of the bodies designated to ensure higher standards
in these disciplines and professions."
This time, rather than merely stating their comprehensive and detailed
opposition to the proposals, the group of eight organisations will
present the Department of Health with a complete plan for the creation
of a wholly new regulatory body, specifically focussed on those
professions who deliver services based on psychological knowledge and
skills.
Besides the new regulatory body proposal the group are also consulting
their members on a range of other concerns raised by the Foster Review:
- both the Foster Review (and Donaldson Report on medical
regulation) are written entirely from an NHS perspective. This has
implications for the many practitioners employed in other parts of the
public sector, as well as those in the private sector, especially for
‘sole traders’;
- educational standards are not dealt with at all. The Foster
Review states "…[this area] did not appear to give cause for concern".
Many of the concerns that the organisations have with the HPC are about
their ‘lowest common denominator’ approach to standard setting;
- complaints against practitioners, in the first instance are going
to be dealt with at local (employer) level. This raises a number of
concerns about how consistency of approach (and therefore fairness)
will be achieved;
- revalidation (Continuing Professional Development) would be based
on an annual performance management review processes carried out by
employers, far less stringent than existing systems; and,
- an unreformed HPC is again being proposed as the only route to
statutory regulation - without any rationale being given as to why this
route protects the public better than a new regulatory body.
Ray Miller concluded: "We remain entirely committed to the principle of
statutory regulation for these professions but it must be based on a
system that is fit-for-purpose and one that will give the public full
and proper protection.
"Rather than just say no to the government’s unreformed HPC model, we
have decided to grasp this opportunity to develop an alternative,
improved model of statutory regulation which is practical, robust,
workable and that will protect the public more rigorously than the
Governments proposal . We plan to present this to ministers as part of
our response to the Foster Review, as a strong and positive alternative
to the flawed proposal of regulation through the HPC."
Editors Note;
Organisations in the group developing the ‘new regulatory body’:
· The British Psychological Society
· The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
· The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy
· The Association of Business Psychologists
· The British Association of Sport and Exercise Science
· The National Association of Principal Educational Psychologists
· The Association of Educational Psychologists
· The Association of the Heads of Psychology Departments
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