Preparing for the next PLG for C&P, 28/29 Jan 09: minutes of 4th Dec 08

The pack of papers are ready for reading, downloadable from the website (linked to the heading of this entry). The minutes of the last meeting, 4th December 08 are amongst that pack.

Some features of these minutes (as yet uncomfirmed) are noteworthy. First, the meeting is not formally constituted as a committee, tho it has a chair, and a set of minutes. It is a Group. Perhaps for this reason the minute taker has not taken the trouble to associate comments with individual group members, except to note those who are late or not attending. The only person that is named in the whole of these minutes is Professor Peter Fonagy, the spokesman for Skills for Health.
. Naming him in this way suggests that he is a particular kind of member of the group.

Otherwise it is The Group as a whole that acts, and it acts in a limited number of ways. I count them:

The Group was welcomed (2) by President and Chair
The Group introduced itself (1)
The Group noted (28)
The Group approved (1) (the agenda)
The Group received (4) reports from DoH, HPC, a summary of responses from CfI (Call for Ideas), the future workplan.
The Group would report (1) to the HPC in July 2009
The Group was asked (1) to identify areas requiring further work.
The Group felt (1) that some responses to CfI were uninformed
The Group agreed (5)
The Group asked (2) to be kept informed on SfH NOS, how to publicise its work

Most of these actions are posed in the passive, but some of them suggest an active agency, 5 of them consisted of agreeing. Lets look at those 5:

1. The group agreed that it would be be useful for a future meeting of the Group to hear about the experience of a profession which had previously become subject to statutory regulation. (Minute 6.5)
2. the Group agreed that it would be useful to ensure that its work addressed the areas indicated in the [HPC administrative] new profession process. (6.10)
3. The Group agreed that its work should focus on making recommendations on statutory regulation, whilst listening to dissenting and sceptical views. (6.11)
4. The Group agreed that its work should aim to ensure that statutory regulation would protect the public. (6.11)
5. The Group agreed that its discussions should focus on issues which related to protection of the public. (6.11)

Agreeing to comply with all the rules already written down.

Points to note.
1. how is agreement reached by the group? It is not clear.
2. what are the reasons given to support agreement number 1?
3. How will the other profession be chosen, and how will its experience be surveyed and reported? How is this more valuable than attending to the reality of the current practise?
4. How do the administrative procedures of the HPC shape, or impact on, the substantive work of the Group?
5. What is at stake in naming this process 'statutory' regulation, when state regulation is a more truthful description of this work.
6. In what way will dissenting or sceptical views be heard (note 3)? The image conjured up here could easily be understood as a kind of handicap, or distraction to the real work; it pre-supposes an unspecified agreement and prejudges a disposition - a splitting mechanism.
7. How is the public being conceived, and what is the harm, how will it protect?

The phrase 'statutory regulation' is used erroneously throughout this document. The correct term is state regulation - it proceeds directly from the act of the government which itself proceeds from the report of the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry.

The limits placed on this group raise serious questions about the trustworthiness of the process. The group itself is constructed entirely within the domain of the HPC. The chair is already an HPC member, attached via another label. The PLG was selected by this chair in order to minimise the chance of actual debate. The substance of the meeting that did begin to touch the real concerns about the negative effects of this process on the practise has been entirely screened out. Brian Magee, for example (who is attached to COSCA - a group in Scotland), asked the very serious question: would the group be able to conclude that the process of HPC-ification was itself against the best interests of the client/user. Kathi Murphy (attached to Metanoia, an organisational member of the UKCP) had to forcefully remind Peter Fonagy (spokesman for Skills for Health) and Mr Bell (substitute for Rose Mary Owen, from the Relate Institute) that she was not fillibustering when she spoke of the real concerns that she was bound to represent that exist within the UKCP.

The minutes make no reference to the reasons the Chair had for closing the meeting 2 hours ahead of schedule. This remains a fact for conjecture.