Message from the President- About Psychology and the Society
- Royal Charter, Statutes and Rules
- Achieving Our Aims and Objectives
- Policy, Consultations and Parliamentary Work
- The Trustees
- Boards and Committees
Statutory Regulation- Statutory Regulation - Latest Updates
- Statutory Regulation FAQs
- HPC Consultations and Responses
- Section 60 Consultation and Responses
- Public Engagement with Psychology
- Research and Science
- Member Conduct Rules, Code of Conduct and Ethical Guidelines
- The Society's Complaints Procedure
- Results of Member Ballots
- Working with Organisations Overseas
|
|
Statutory Regulation - Latest UpdatesStatutory Regulation - President's Update - 1 July 2009Dear ColleaguesToday, 1 July 2009, is the start of a new era for our Society. The Health Professions Council (HPC) Register of practitioner psychologists has opened. The data on those Chartered Psychologists eligible for automatic entry has been successfully transferred to the HPC who have informed us that they will be writing very shortly to everyone with details about their Register. Getting to where we have arrived has been a very long and highly complex process. The Society started work on gaining statutory regulation back in the early 1980s - there have been many, many individuals involved, both members and staff, to whom I must extend an enormous thank you. This includes those, both members and lay people, who have been involved in our own investigatory and disciplinary processes over many years and who have helped us to achieve the standards we have. It also includes those who have contributed to training, research and applied psychology. Our role now in terms of regulation is to work with the HPC to ensure that it is a success. Alongside this we shall be developing the new learned and professional body that members want and our new Strategic Plan for the next five years has now been agreed.
We have issued a media release today to welcome that fact that the majority of Chartered Psychologists are from today to be regulated by law, by the HPC; and guidance on such matters as the use of Society titles is being updated and will be added to the web.
Yours sincerely
Sue Gardner President Statutory Regulation - President's Update - 12 June 2009The Health Professions Council have taken the Society’s advice and set their threshold entry level the same as the Society, which we have benchmarked at Doctorate level.
We are pleased that the HPC listened to our advice about education entry levels and recognised the Society's expertise in knowing what level of education and training is required before a psychologist is deemed safe to practice independently. This level had been agreed with the largest public sector employers - the health and education services. It is disappointing that the HPC chose not to explicitly mention the Doctorate routes in forensic and health psychology. It is also disappointing that our advice to protect the title 'psychologist' was not taken on board, as this would have been comprehensive and less confusing for the public. The transfer of the data of those Chartered Psychologists automatically eligible for entry onto the HPC Register will go ahead on 1 July and I understand that the HPC will be writing to all those individuals shortly after that date. I will also be writing to all Chartered Psychologists in the first week of July. I would like to thank a number of people who have worked so hard over the past five years, including past presidents Dr Liz Campbell, Professor Pam Maras, Ray Miller and Dr Graham Powell, the Divisions and their trainers, and all the staff. They have given advice and information which proved important in helping the HPC make the decision. We will work closely with the HPC to our mutual benefit. Yours sincerely Sue Gardner
President
Statutory Regulation - President’s Update 22 May 2009Health Professions Council (HPC) - 20 May 2009 - Decisions re Standards of Proficiency, Threshold Entry level and Grandparenting criteriaDear ColleaguesThe HPC Education and Training Committee and Council met on 20 May to decide on the Standards of Proficiency, the Threshold Entry level and Grandparenting criteria for psychologists entering the HPC Register opening on 1 July. The outcome was that decisions were made on two of the three items - the Standards of Proficiency were agreed, with some very minor text changes, as were the Grandparenting criteria but the full decision on the Threshold Entry level was deferred. The Education and Training Committee and Council will meet again on 11 June to make the final decision. What was clear from yesterday's meeting is that the HPC will not agree to the Threshold being at D/level 12, despite the fact that all of the existing qualifications, which lead directly to chartered status are benchmarked at D/level 12 eg the Society’s Stage II qualifications and the professional postgraduate training courses. This, of course, was recognised by the Trustees and by Representative Council when discussions were held in the context of responding to the HPC consultation on the Threshold level, and it was agreed that the Society's corporate response should clearly state that D/level 12 was the only position that could mirror the existing arrangements. The Society has made its views clearly known to the HPC that such a decision appears to be counter to their previous practice of accepting existing entry levels when a new profession comes under regulation. We will have to await the 11 June meeting to find out exactly what entry level has been chosen for future entrants to the HPC Register. However, in the meantime we will attempt to discuss with HPC officers appropriate wording for the Threshold level. We will have to study carefully the potential implications of the decisions, and I will bring you more on the HPC outcomes as soon as I have them. Yours sincerely Sue Gardner President Statutory Regulation - President’s Update 5 May 2009Health Care and Associated Professions (Miscellaneous Amendments and Practitioner Psychologists) Order 2009Dear Colleagues Some time ago you were kind enough to meet colleagues concerning the Statutory Regulation of Psychologists and that is why I am writing to you now. The above Statutory Instrument will enable the Health Professions Council (HPC) to regulate 'practitioner psychologists' and when it was debated in the other place on 31 March 2009 the Minister of State, Ben Bradshaw MP, made two statements, which we feel should not stand without comment or uncorrected. We are therefore hoping that you might be able to raise these points in the debate that you are due to have on the Statutory Instrument on 5 May 2009. The first point refers to the Threshold Entry level to the profession, which the HPC have consulted upon, and which the HPC are due to consider and decide upon at their meeting on 20 May 2009. The Minister of State said: 'The BPS has long argued that the profession should be limited to those with doctorates. That is not accepted by our Department. Now, the HPC should determine the appropriate level of qualification for entry into the profession.' Indeed the Society has long argued that the Threshold Entry level for safe and effective practice is at ‘D’ level/level 12 because that is the level at which all the existing qualifications and training is set for all existing Chartered Psychologists (i.e. those that the Society deems fit to practice). Indeed this level has been, and is, approved by employers in both the Health and Education services. So, it is not a matter of '…should be limited…' it is a matter that it is limited to those with doctorate level/level 12 qualifications and training. This statement by the Minister also appears to contradict assurances this Society was given by his Department that quality standards would not be lowered by the transition from our voluntary register to the statutory one. If the Threshold Entry level is lowered from D/12 level to something less then obviously quality, standards will fall. We are also surprised by the Minister's statement as it would appear to be attempting to influence a decision that the independent HPC has not yet made. The Minister has given a very clear political steer to an organisation, which is meant to be independent of Government. Our second point refers to the matter raised in the debate on 31 March 2009 by the Honourable Member for Guildford, Anne Milton and the answer given by the Minister of State. Ms Milton said: 'There is concern about the 2,000-odd Chartered Psychologists, whom I understand will not be deemed to be safe to practise by the HPC, because the legislation, as drafted, will not allow automatic entry to its register. They will therefore have to go through potentially costly grandparenting scrutiny with the HPC. I quote from a letter that I received from the British Psychological Society: 'The effect of this exclusion is that these individuals may be disbarred from professional practice using one of the proposed protected titles—a restraint of trade issue - and they may potentially have to pay an extra fee to the HPC to be assessed to gain entry to the Register via one of the grand parenting routes.' The Society considers that 'the Department of Health have taken a narrow view to only recognise and therefore regulate those of our Chartered Psychologists who are members of one of our seven professional Divisions, whilst we have argued that many of the "excluded 2,000" work in areas that cross professional boundaries or in specialist subsets of professional practice, but who are nonetheless safe and independent practitioners.' It argues 'that the proposed Statutory Instrument would not achieve its purpose of fully protecting the public from the full range of existing qualified practitioner psychologists; it may disbar existing Chartered Psychologists from future employment; and it may force some 2,000 existing Chartered Psychologists to go through potentially costly…scrutiny'. In reply the Minister of State said: 'The hon. Lady asked about Chartered Psychologists. We are aware that a number of them have been issued with practising certificates by the BPS but are not entitled to be full members of one of the seven divisions of the society, whose members will automatically transfer to the HPC register. It is not clear whether the psychologists will all need to be registered. Our view is that if the BPS is unable to allow those people to use the titles associated with full membership in its divisions, it is difficult to justify giving them an automatic right to do so without further consideration by the HPC. The fact is that the proper title on the existing voluntary register is ‘Chartered Psychologist’, not ‘Chartered something Psychologist’ as is implied by the Minister's reply. The various adjectival titles that the Department of Health have chosen as the protected titles actually refer to membership of various Society Divisions, and not if the individual has been deemed fit to practice safely and independently. These extra titles were introduced by the Society as an aid to the public to enable them to more easily identify appropriate practitioners. I must re-emphasise the point made by the Honourable Member for Guildford; the Statutory Instrument as drafted will exclude some 2,000 suitably qualified Chartered Psychologists who this Society has over many years deemed fit to practice. This exclusion will therefore leave the public unprotected from this large number of independent practitioners and therefore this SI is in our view flawed. I hope that the two points I have covered above are clear and that they will be able to be made in your debate on 5 May 2009. If you have any queries or need any clarification please do not hesitate to contact me. Yours sincerely
Statutory Regulation - President's Update 8 April 2009Dear Colleagues
First, I should introduce myself, I am Sue Gardner and I took over from Liz Campbell as President at the Society's AGM held last week at a very successful Annual Conference. For my first update please find below the full transcript of the debate in the Delegated Legislation Committee, House of Commons, 31 March 2009, regarding the s60 'Health Care and Associated Professions (Miscellaneous Amendments and Practitioner Psychologists) Order 2009'. The outcome is that the Committee agreed the legislation. The same s60 was also discussed and agreed by the relevant Committee in the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday 1 April. There remain some further formal hurdles that have to be gone through, but it now appears that the scheduled start date for the HPC opening of the 'psychologists' register on 1 July 2009 is on course. I will bring you further information as soon as it is available. Yours sincerely Sue Gardner President
Update 26 March 09: Brief summary on the Health Professions Council (HPC) response to their public consultations on (1) Standards of Proficiency (SoP) and (2) Threshold entry levelStandards of Proficiency (SoP)Introduction: The HPC acknowledged our concerns about how the HPC define and describe who they are, but make no comment on it. This will come up again when they consult on the Generic SoP so the Society can raise it again at that time. They have adopted our terminology of ‘domains’ rather than ‘disciplines’ which is helpful.
Generic SoP: They have acknowledged the comments received and commit to including them in the 2009 review of the Generic SoP. They also committed to adding a statement about the role of the ‘generic standards’ to the introduction and state that the standards will be applied by members of the profession in a way which is specific to the profession. This is not quite the commitment we asked for (that if a Generic SoP was not relevant to psychology it would not be applied by HPC in either course approvals or individual conduct cases) but is a reasonable compromise. English language requirements: This was an area that the Society was very concerned about. The summary of responses is fair. A number supported our position that the minimum should be IELTS 8 with no element below 7.5. Supporters include the Department of Health, BACP, NHS Lanarkshire, and NHS Education for Scotland, and for some domains, the Scottish Government. The British Association of Arts Therapists supported a lower level (7.5 with nothing below 7) arguing that in their experience 7 was a sufficient level of competence and that this was about threshold levels. The Polish Psychologists Club supported the lower level used by HPC for most of their professions arguing that the higher level could prevent psychologists from being able to register and therefore threaten service provision to non English speaking communities.. The summary is fair as are the HPC comment.
Regulation: There were many responses about HPC as the regulator, which they have included, but they point out that this issue was not part of this consultation. Scope of practice: The Society received the reassurance we sought that individuals transferring over from our register will not have to demonstrate SoP, which are outside of their scope of practice, so long as they continue to meet all those that are within their scope of practice. On the SoP themselves: There do not appear to be any major concerns with the psychology standards (both profession specific and domain specific) which HPC put out for consultation as we were quite closely involved in their drafting. There have been some changes in light of consultation responses, and a lot of these seem to be based on our response. They haven’t made all the changes our response suggested, but the compromise seems fair. In a number of cases other respondents (AHPD & UEA for example) have echoed exactly what we said, which has added to the strength of our position. BACP have consistently suggested adding standards, or making some domain specific standards from clinical or counselling psychology generic to all psychologists. The British Association for Arts Therapists have consistently suggested that the standards are too detailed to be at the threshold level and that a number of the profession/domain specific standards should be removed because, in their opinion, they are at a level above that which would be expected of a new practitioner. In summary the HPC response to this consultation is a fair job of weighing up the responses and they have included a number of our suggested amendments to the profession/domain specific standards, and have given sensible reasons where they have chosen not to do this. Threshold Entry LevelIntroduction: the HPC paper on the SET 1 (that is, the threshold entry level for the register) sets out the possible threshold levels identified in their consultation paper, with a summary of the responses in relation to each.
Doctorate for the whole part of the Register: The paper refers to responses from the Society and the Association of Heads of Psychology Departments (AHPD) as arguing that all domains reach D Level/level 12 even though the form of the award can vary across domains. Arguments advanced in favour of this threshold included not lowering the current standard; that there was no difference in competence levels or academic standards between domains; and, that doctorates already exist as the entry route for a number of domains. Arguments against included that a doctorate was not necessary for public protection; concerns about the impact on the supply of psychology graduates to the profession; and, implications for internationally qualified psychologists. It’s fair to report that there was a fair amount of opposition to setting the threshold at ‘Doctorate’ for all domains. The British Association of Arts Therapists, the Scottish Government (Health Directorates) and Neuropsychologists UK all suggested the level should be below ‘Doctorate’. Different thresholds for different domains of psychology: The paper stated that a number of respondents argued that the threshold level should be set specific to each domain; although it also states that the Society argues that the current level is D level/level 12 across the UK for all domains. The paper suggests that setting domain specific threshold levels would be a departure from normal HPC practice. Arguments in favour included that not all domains currently require Doctorates and that it was not possible to set one threshold level for all domains. The Department of Health said they had a strong preference for a threshold to be set for the whole part of the register and, whilst not specifying their preferred standard, clearly seemed to be leaning to something below Doctorate. Quite a lot of responses have argued for having different threshold levels for different domains, based mainly on the different qualifications routes which currently exist. Masters degree, or equivalent, with further training or experience as appropriate: Some respondents argued that the Doctorate threshold is not necessary for safe and effective practice. HPC also make the point that specifying a threshold level without reference to the name of an award which leads directly to registration is problematic. The paper mentions the option of having the threshold set for some or all domains at ‘M level +’, ie with further training/experience. Summary: the paper is a balanced representation of the views of the respondents. It does not recommend a specific threshold level. This decision would emerge from the discussion of the Education and Training Committee. This briefing on both HPC responses drafted by Helen Clark, The Society’s Qualifications Manager
HPC Education and Training Committee, Wed 25 March 2009The issues above were discussed at the Health Professions Council Education and Training Committee on Wednesday 25 March.
In summary the outcomes were:
1. Standards of Proficiency (SoP)
2. Threshold entry level
I will update you with further news as soon as it becomes available.
Dr Liz Campbell
President
Statutory Regulation - President's Update 6 March 09Dear Colleagues
The legislation to enable psychologists to be taken into statutory regulation has now been tabled in both Westminster and Holyrood.
From our initial reading of the Statutory Instrument (Section 60 Order) Health Care and Associated Professions (Miscellaneous Amendments & Practitioner Psychologists) Order 2009 there are no surprises in that it is very similar to earlier drafts that the Society has seen and commented on.
The legislation has to go through due process. It will be scrutinised by the appropriate committees in both London and Edinburgh, they will report to their respective parliaments, and then there has to be a vote in both the Commons and Lords in Westminster, and in the Scottish Parliament. In January, I wrote a letter (see below) to those committees pointing out our policy position that by excluding a significant number of Chartered Psychologists (those without an adjectival title) then the public will not be as fully protected as they should be, and deserve to be. We believe that this is a failing in the legislation and hope that the committees scrutinising the Statutory Instrument will agree. Both the Department of Health (DH) and the Health Professions Council (HPC) have to work on the basis that the legislation will be passed, and they have informed us that they are still working on 1 July 2009 as the date that the register will open. It is therefore imperative that any Chartered Psychologist, who does not currently have a Society adjectival title and who wants to practise under the protected titles, applies for full membership of the appropriate Society Division by the deadline of 20 May 2009. However, there can be no guarantee that all applicants will be accepted, as each case will be considered against the appropriate and current membership criteria. This is because only the details of Chartered Psychologists with an adjectival title and a current practising certificate will be automatically sent to the HPC. The actual wording of the legislation states in reference to those who will be eligible to be entered on the HPC Register:
The 'BPS register' means the aggregate of the entries in the register maintained by the British Psychological Society that relate to holders of practising certificates who are or have been full members of one or more of the divisions of the Society in respect of the following branches of psychology: clinical psychology; counselling psychology; educational psychology; forensic psychology; health psychology; occupational psychology; and sport and exercise psychology.
Those not in that position and who wish to continue to practise will have to apply to the HPC via their grandparenting routes, details of which can be found on the HPC website.
Now that the legislation has been tabled, we are able and will bring you further guidance and information about what it means to those who will potentially need to be on the HPC register - so, please keep a close watch on the our website. I will bring you further news as it becomes available.
Yours sincerely
Dr Liz Campbell
President
Statutory Regulation update - 2 March 2009Dear ColleaguesThe legislation to enable psychologists to be taken into statutory regulation has still not been tabled. This is despite assurances from the Department of Health that its legislative journey would begin last week. However we still have to plan, as the Health Professions Council (HPC) is, for the planned implementation date of 1 July 2009. Specifically, the Professional Conduct Board and the Trustees have been considering our complaints/fitness to practise systems and processes. Given that the HPC will be responsible for 'fitness to practise' complaints we will have to hand over to the HPC any outstanding or part-heard cases against any psychologist who is on the HPC Register. To facilitate a smooth and efficient handover the Society has agreed with the HPC a process for dealing with the handover. Both the complainant and the psychologist concerned will be informed of this process. As the Society will cease the regulation of fitness to practise, new rules for members are being developed by the Trustees and the Professional Conduct Board, and a system is being developed to enable the Society to hear complaints against members who are alleged to have breached these new rules. Both these new rules and the new complaints system will require changes to the Society's existing Statutes and Rules and therefore all members will be consulted and asked to vote on these post statutory regulation consequences. As I have said in earlier updates, statutory regulation offers the Society an opportunity to redefine what it wants to be, and the results of the recent Membership Survey will inform the debates and discussions that the Trustees, Representative Council, our Boards and Member Networks will have to have to agree our Society of the future. I will bring you further news as it becomes available. Yours sincerely Dr Liz Campbell President Statutory Regulation Update - 18 December 2008Dear ColleaguesPost Statutory Regulation The Trustees met earlier in December, and discussed the responses to the consultation on some of the structural and governance issues consequential to statutory regulation. The decisions made are important for our future and this is why I felt it was important to provide an update as soon as I was able. Please feel free to circulate this update to anyone who you feel may be interested.
Dr Liz Campbell
The Society Post Statutory Regulation - some initial decisions1. Earlier this year the Trustees set up a Working Group - the Future Structures Group - to look at governance and other issues that would follow from Statutory Regulation by the HPC given that all the Society’s regulatory functions would disappear. In the autumn a series of proposals were circulated to all the Society’s Boards and Member Networks, presented to the Representative Council, and at the December meeting of the Trustees the responses were considered and decisions made. Below is a summary of those decisions. Some of these will require changes to the Society’s Statutes and Rules, and therefore members will have an opportunity to vote on their adoption.
3. Recommendations on changes to Governance arising from work outlined above will be disseminated to all the Society’s Boards and Member Networks for comment.
|
© Copyright 2000-2009 The British Psychological Society
The British Psychological Society is a charity registered in England and Wales, Registration Number : 229642 and a charity registered in Scotland, Registration Number : SC039452 - VAT Registration Number : 240 3937 76