Press release on JR from Bindmans LLP

Psychotherapists win the right to challenge Health Professions Council plans for statutory regulation

Mr Justice Burton has given six psychotherapy and psychoanalysis
practitioner groups permission to proceed with what he described as an
“important” judicial review challenge to proposals for their
regulation by the Health Professions Council (HPC).

The groups' barrister, Dinah Rose QC argued that the HPC had
unlawfully ducked critical questions about whether psychotherapy and
psychoanalysis should be regulated by statute and, more importantly,
whether the HPC is fit for purpose in this context given its focus on
the measurable outcomes of medical-style interventions. Their judicial
review was ruled to have been brought without delay and was “clearly
arguable” in the judge’s view. Giving a short oral judgement, Mr
Justice Burton went on to criticise the misleading nature of HPC
statements. Practitioner groups had been led to believe the HPC were
considering and would be reporting to the Department of Health on
whether it should be the regulator in circumstances where this was
apparently never planned or done.

During the course of the litigation the Department of Health has
maintained a neutral stance and put plans to introduce legislation on
hold to await the Court’s decision. The HPC will now have five weeks
to file further evidence before the case is listed for a full hearing
in the Spring.

Professor Darian Leader of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and
Research, one of the six practitioner groups, said today:

“It is very unfortunate that the HPC has chosen to use its existing
registrants’ fees to fight this case to date. We are told by its
solicitors that its legal costs already run to £47,000. This money
could be used to produce a meaningful report on how best to regulate
the talking therapies. Instead it is being used to defend an
empire-building decision that today’s ruling exposes as being legally
questionable and, in our view, is perverse and unsustainable. The HPC
was charged with investigating the regulatory needs of practitioner
groups such as ours and deciding whether statutory regulation was
appropriate at all and, if it was, whether it was the right regulator.
It simply evaded those questions. We hope the HPC will now show itself
to be appropriately sensitive to the indication given by the Court,
withdraw its current proposals for regulation and step aside so a body
that is actually capable of improving standards and protect the public
in this difficult field can be created.”


Notes



1 The claim was brought by the Association for Group And Individual
Psychotherapy, the Association of Independent Psychotherapists, the
Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, the College of
Psychoanalysts-Uk, the Guild of Psychotherapists and the Philadelphia
Association.

2. The campaign has been supported by many well-known artists, writers
and philosophers, including Rosie Boycott, Tracey Emin, Brian Eno,
Sophie Fiennes, Bella Freud, Esther Freud, Antony Gormley, John Gray,
Oliver James, Anish Kapoor, Hanif Kureishi, Lee Hall, Susie Orbach,
Cornelia Parker, Adam Phillips, Will Self, Gavin Turk and Slavoj
Zizek.