At the Fitness to Practise (FTP) Forum on Friday 24 April, Council members expressed surprise that one third of its budget is spent on ‘hearings’, despite FTP concerns affecting fewer than 0.5% of HPC registrants. They also asked why such an adversarial and expensive method was favoured over mediation, even where the latter might be more effective. The answer is that the law governing HPC regulation only allows mediation to be mentioned at the end of the process, by which time registrant and complainant (often a registrant’s NHS manager or colleague, by the way, seldom an ordinary member of the public) are well entrenched in conflict, and mediation is no longer viable.
Who writes the rules that constrain people in this way?
How can the Council move to make a change?
Monday, 27 April 2009
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3 comments:
Hello Janet
You are a complete treasure in personally committing time and resources to such important and far-reaching issues. I have come to rely on your first-rate frontline reporting on the realities of the HPC’s regime, as I am physically unable to undertake systematic attendance to HPC’s hearings, meetings etc. I read the HPC watchdog blog everyday as a salutary reminder of the social and political coordinates of my distress. (see www.bringbackourjoy.com for details).
Regarding mediation, I would like to put on record that it was never offered to me as an option either in the initial - and crucial - stages of our complaint about the HPC-registered music therapist, nor at any other stage.
Surely if mediation is a possibility it should be the very first port of call? The HPC’s mediation-as-a-last-resort hinted at in your post is a topsy-turvy way of approaching friction and disappointment between client and practitioner when difficulties arise.
Thanks again for keeping an eye on this most pernicious of organisations.
Paola
I shall have to read this blog more - UserWatch is supporting both petitions and the latest on which Bella Freud and Esther Freud signed .. And the petitons are supported on NowPublic.com
http://my.nowpublic.com/art-de-rivers
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Paola by the way is nearly spot on - Mediation is usually offered pretty quickly in a process where a dispute occurs between a service and User - if the service is thoughtful enough .. Mind you it can follow after a complaint too as an ADR (alternative dispute resolution)
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Thank you Paola and thank you Patient Guard - your comments are both very useful and welcome. From what I now understand, the HPC is a political solution to the vast complexities of life. It is done on the cheap from the Government's point of view, so it has to be big on publicity and uses the Fitness to Practise hearings as show trials to 'prove' it is doing its job (they are always front page news on the website). The truth is the HPC is a centralised administrative function that holds extremely large lists of names etc on databases. It cannot possibly regulate practise in any meaningful way (eg it is responsible for 13 different activities). I think this must be why it resorts to fear and bluster via the FTP process. It is being asked to do something beyond reason. As far as I can make out the rules that constrain its agents are written by a solicitor who earns quite a nice living out of his contracts with the HPC, and whose colleagues are frequently engaged to put the HPC case in the FTP hearings. This probably 'explains' why mediation wasn't thought about before. All this stuff needs bringing out into the light of day where it will surely wither and die. The speed and size of this political nonsense is preventing the good old British public from being able to take in what is happening. I really do believe that we need to drag it into the light, and let people see for themselves the stupidity of this movement. But we had better get a move on - the process is already rolling towards Parliament. Thanks again for taking an interest. More anon.
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