Report 34, w/e 13 Nov 09. New UKCP Chair is Andrew Samuels

At 4pm on Monday 9th November the UKCP published its election results on the web. They had been expected at lunchtime.
UKCP election for Chair:
Total votes cast: 3,186
Total votes for Andrew Samuels: 2,108
Total votes for Carmen Joanne Ablack:1,074
Number of eligible voters: 6,714
Number of votes found to be invalid: 4
This was the first time that individual registrants have been eligible to vote in the elections for Chair of the UKCP and Tom Colling of the Electoral Reform Services (the independent charity commissioned to administer the voting) said: 'Turnout was very high when compared to that of other organisations. Fifty per cent is impressive”. This election marks the beginning of a new era for the organisation and is clearly a landslide with grassroots members showing their opposition to the organisational strategy to enter the HPC.
The election process, however, was plagued with bad feeling, bad behaviour and bad administration, and new Chief Executive Officer, David Pink, issued a statement on 4 November in which he said “With James [Antrican’s] support, I am asking the Board of UKCP for an independent, sober inquiry and review. I want inquiry and review, not a witch-hunt. UKCP has new lay trustees who are due to take office on 5 December; I will recommend that they are involved in the review. I think we will need to examine where things went wrong and what could have been handled better, but we need to do all this as part of a process that leads to healing and learning.”

On Saturday 7th November, at The Kings Fund, Cavendish Square, 7 UKCP Chairs, past and present, gathered to tell a story of the UKCP’s pathway toward statutory regulation. James Antrican conceived this idea as part of his final contribution as current Chair (which will be handed to Andrew Samuels on 5 December), and he used his presentation to speak of politics, controversy and power – ‘we are trying to bring psychotherapy into the world’.
The panel of speakers reflected the trajectory of history from Michael Pokorny’s optimistic days at the Rugby Conference with its dreams of independent statutory self-regulation, through to today’s ambivalent desperation about the prospect of the HPC. Michael Pokorny was clear that HPC was not right for this field, but the second speaker, Emmy van Deurzen (93-95), thought it a fantastic opportunity for the UKCP. In spite of her forthright enthusiasm she added that there was ‘a lot of rubbish’ to be cleared up before they entered, and in particular she named the ‘nonsense policy’ on criminal records, and the absurd lack of a mediation process.
Anne Casement’s presentation marked a turning point. It was during her time in the Chair (88-2001) that the Government axed all hopes of statutory self-regulation and announced its intention to impose the HPC. She resigned before the end of her term, and perhaps this would help explain why she used her UKCP talk to praise up the BPC.
Over wine and canapés at the end of the day news seeped out that the HPC had postponed the final PLG meeting, scheduled for 18 and 19 November. Both the Chair and Chief Executive of the HPC attended the afternoon meeting.
The formal notice of postponement was emailed at 1pm on Monday 9th:
• It spoke of ‘potential’ regulation yet proceeded with its intention to regulate.
• It admitted receiving an unprecedented 1000 responses to the consultation.
• It said that the Council meeting (10th December), would consider the analysis of these responses, and invited the PLG to observe.
• It anticipated “the PLG will be reconvened to undertake further work in revising the standards of proficiency”.
• Finally, it mentioned Anne Milton’s meeting from 2 November where: “participants felt that there needed to be more opportunities for discussion and debate both with HPC and within the field, about regulation.” However, any possibility of their exclusion as regulator is pre-empted by their intention “to hold a series of events next year to engage with the wider field”. These events, they say, will feed into the planned continuing work of the PLG.”


During this week some colleagues have been contacted by ‘call centre researchers’. One practitioner said “I've just had a telephone call from someone wanting to conduct a telephone interview on counselling and psychotherapy. She said she was from Skills for Health. When I asked her what it was in aid of, she told me it was something to do with the HPC but could not be more forthcoming. She said there ‘are a lot of counsellors out there who are not properly qualified'. I asked if she could send me the questions in writing but she refused, saying they were all 'on the computer' and the questionnaire could only be administered over the phone. I wondered if this was the start of the HPC/SFH's campaign to discredit anyone who opposes their regulation and/or to gather 'evidence' that there are indeed a lot of therapists 'out there' who are not 'properly qualified'.”

The BPC stage its third Savoy Conference on 26 and 27 November (£390). This series of conferences are run by The New Savoy Partnership, chaired by Jeremy Clarke, Chair of the Association for Psychoanalytic Practitioners in the NHS. Although the stated aim is to increase access for patients to a range of psychological therapies, the political distortion of these events make them seem more and more like a concerted campaign to increase the access of BPC members to jobs in the NHS and control over the training of others.

Any good intentions are buried beneath the more obvious power politics that is running roughshod over any genuine enlightened endeavour. The slogan ‘evidence based practice’ is announced in the very first paragraph of the blurb, and is swiftly followed by a statement that Andy Burnham (current Secretary of State for Health) will speak about the government’s New Horizons Framework. New Horizon takes over from the 10-year plan known as the Mental Health Framework, which saw the creation of a Mental Health Czar (Louis Appleby). It is “about driving up standards of mental health services, but also about promoting public mental health and wellbeing more widely. We want to prevent people getting depressed or mentally unwell in the first place.”
http://www.penninecare.nhs.uk/about/news/news-item/?doc=1421

BACP online Magazine Therapy Today carries letters and news relating to these concerns: The KCL Research: http://www.therapytoday.net/article/show/1427/)
The legal challenge (Bindman)
http://www.therapytoday.net/article/show/1420/
Letters: http://www.therapytoday.net/article/show/1437/
http://www.therapytoday.net/article/show/1439/
http://www.therapytoday.net/article/show/1440/

Against State Reg 2821 Against Over Reg 1711

Thanks to colleagues for their work in generating leads and information. Feedback welcome.