Trust Assurance Safety - the White Paper (Feb 2007)

The Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, MP, and then Secretary of State for Health, wrote in her Foreword to this White Paper "patients in the UK rightly have great confidence in their health professionals... the preservation of that trust has to be the starting point [of any regulation]... it is all too easy to focus on the incompetent or malicious practice of individuals and seek to build a system from that, [but]... professionalism is an unquantifiable asset to our society which rules, regulations, and systems must support, not inhibit." p1

This document is important in this process as it is where the words are written that produce the justification for the HPC-fication of counselling and psychotherapy - the field that is currently under consideration for state regulation.