The HPC ETC on the question of psychologists

The list of agenda items for the Education and Training Committee this week was very long indeed. It would turn your soul to stone if you actually read that stuff. Some of the papers were read out by some of the admin staff present. Their style of speaking turns your soul to stone. Punctuated by regular staccatos 'er' 'er' 'er' and delivered in a monotone - this is not about transmitting information. It reminds me of a child rushing through its prayers, hurrying it out of the way. Or a bland repetition of a ritual where the meaning has been long lost.

Most of the meeting was about massaging the Psychologists onto the register. A question about PhDs was causing great concern. A couple of kinds of psychologists have managed to make PhD the entry level of their register. None of the other groups on HPC lists requires a PhD. The Psychologists want to maintain their tradition, however. So, Diane Waller and Jeff Lucas both made long interventions which appealed to the group for support. Lucas managed to string together a whole series of Newspeak Phrases which made me wish I had a tape recorder. It reminds me of a christmas party game where people ina circle each contribute a new phrase to a sentence which must be repeated by the next person in the line, who adds a phrase of thier own. The outcome is a very long sentence which makes no sense at all, but honours each player in the circle.

Flexibility was the word that captured the hearts of enough of the members present. This was Di Waller's earnest attempt to overturn Mr Bracken's constant advice. He said - don't pay attention to the reality of the practise, remember the ideals you have set in the standards. She said, yes, but we probably could be flexible. The HPC must be seen to be flexible. And so it was that against all the odds that the Psychologists made their point.

One more thing - a little bit of business was done towards the end of a long and tedious meeting. Some small course in South Africa which has been training ambulance drivers to HPC UK standards had cropped up on a list as an anomaly. The committee spoke about it as if it were a foregone conclusion that this course was a freebie of some kind for somebody somewhere. They didn't know much about it, and didn't really care. In just a few brief moments they agreed to disenfranchise it. Boom. Someome's livlihood - vanished into thin air.