Gov dumps plans to regulate psys by HPC. Statement fromThe Alliance for Counselling & Psychotherapy

February 17th 2011

Statement from the Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy on the Government’s Command Paper, ‘Enabling Excellence: Autonomy and Accountability for Healthcare Workers, Social Workers and Social Care Workers’ (Cm 8008)

GOVERNMENT ABANDONS STATUTORY REGULATION IN FAVOUR OF NEW VOLUNTARY APPROACH

The Government yesterday published its Command Paper ‘Enabling Excellence’, which provides further detail of how proposals in the recent Health and Social Care Bill affecting counselling and psychotherapy are to be implemented. The Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy is delighted to see that, with the exception of herbal medicine (as required by EU law), the Government is not proposing to extend statutory regulation to any further professions. Thus the state regulation of counselling and psychotherapy by the Health Professions Council (HPC) and the legal protection of the titles counsellor and psychotherapist – as proposed by the previous government and consistently opposed by the Alliance – will not now go ahead.

Instead, a voluntary system for unregulated professions will be developed under the umbrella of the new Professional Standards Authority (previously the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence: CHRE). Rather than a costly and intrusive system requiring compulsory registration and the monitoring of thousands of individual practitioners, the new approach will be based on ‘quality assurance’ of voluntary registers, such as those already held by many organisations in a number of fields. Under certain circumstances, existing statutory regulators will also be empowered to set up voluntary registers, though it is as yet unclear whether they will do so. The Government’s rationale for this substantial shift in policy echoes many of the arguments put forward by the Alliance, recognising that the case for across-the-board statutory regulation has not been made, and that its imposition would constitute a disproportionate and inappropriate response:

“Regulation of the health and social care workforce is sometimes necessary where there are significant risks to people using services which cannot be mitigated in other ways. However, in recent decades compulsory blanket statutory regulation of the health and social care workforce in England has too often been seen as the first resort, rather than the last, in deciding how best to assure safe, effective and respectful care. Where regulation has been extended, there has not always been a robust and transparent case made based on the level of presenting risk.”
(http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_124374.pdf p. 16)

The Government has also clearly taken account of the potential negative impact that statutory regulation could have in the voluntary and lower paid sectors, where many counsellors in particular work:

“If regulation of this type were to continue to be extended to all groups where the previous administration had made commitments to introduce regulation, an additional 1.3 million workers (many of whom are in relatively low paid support roles) would be obliged by law to pay registration fees in order to continue to pursue their livelihoods.” (ibid., p. 16) (note: the paper states that this figure includes counsellors and psychotherapists)

The Command Paper goes on to say that:

“For the overwhelming majority of occupational and professional groups which are not currently subject to statutory regulation and which are generally not considered to present a high level of risk to the public, but where recommendations that regulation should be introduced have been made (including those groups recommended by the HPC for statutory regulation in the past, but not yet registered) [such as counsellors and psychotherapists – Alliance note] the assumption will be that assured voluntary registration would be the preferred option.” (ibid., p. 18)

The Alliance welcomes the Government’s change of direction, awaits with interest further details of the voluntary registration model, and looks forward to making a significant contribution to making the new arrangements work effectively to enhance accountability across the field. We recognise the key role that ministers Anne Milton and Lord Howe have played in this policy change, and are hopeful that this may herald a more flexible and consensual approach, not only with regard to regulatory policy, but also in other areas of concern such as the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines and the limited range of therapies which are currently available within the Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. The Alliance will continue to argue strongly, as it has done since its inception, that it is neither appropriate nor helpful, for the public or for practitioners, that the Health Professions Council continues to involve itself in this field. The Alliance has always believed that a counterweight was needed to the centralising, standardising and protectionist tendencies which all professions tend to exhibit, and which were exemplified by, and a key driver of, the HPC project. To the contrary, as people who work therapeutically with the human condition, we stand for diversity, responsibility, autonomy and innovation.

Finally the Alliance wishes to thank its many supporters for their much-valued role in helping to bring about this notable change of policy.

Contact: info@allianceforcandp.org web: www.allianceforcandp.org

Good news: statement from Andrew Lansley

Written Ministerial Statement

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

Regulation of healthcare Workers, social workers and social care workers

Wednesday 16 February 2011

The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Andrew Lansley): Safe, respectful and effective care is essential and should be what all users of health and social care services experience.
The vast majority of those who work in health and social care are committed individuals with a strong sense of professionalism who aspire to deliver the highest standards. However, where there is poor practice or behaviour that presents a risk to the public, it is vital that swift action is taken, whether by employers, or by national regulatory bodies.
Ensuring a strong and effective system for regulating health and social care professionals is one of the cornerstones of our strategy for delivering improved outcomes for people who use health and social care services. The current system of professional regulation helps to ensure this by setting high standards of education, training, conduct and ethics and by taking action to remove unsuitable workers in the rare cases when things go wrong. Regulation of healthcare workers and social workers therefore makes an important contribution to safeguarding the public, including vulnerable children and adults.
However, the regulatory framework is also complex, expensive and requires continuous Government intervention to keep it up to date. More generally, reducing regulation is a key priority for the coalition Government. By freeing society from unnecessary laws, the Government aims to create a better balance of responsibilities between the state, business, civil society and individuals, and to encourage people to take greater personal responsibility for their actions.

Whilst regulation of some professionals is vital to ensure high standards of care, it is only one component of a wider system of safeguards, controls and clinical governance and ultimate responsibility for the provision of high quality services must rest with employers and those contracting with health and social care workers. We believe that the approach to professional regulation must be proportionate and effective, imposing the least cost and complexity consistent with securing safety and confidence for patients, service users, carers and the wider public.

I have today laid before Parliament a Command Paper, Enabling Excellence - Autonomy and Accountability for Healthcare Workers, Social Workers and Social Care Workers (Cm 8008) setting out the Government’s proposals for how the system for regulating health care workers across the United Kingdom and social workers in England should be reformed, to sustain and develop the high professional standards of those practitioners and to continue to assure the safety of those using services and the rest of the public.

The reforms, many of which are being progressed through the Health and Social Care Bill, will give greater independence to those who work in health care across the UK and social care in England, to their employers, and to the professional regulatory bodies; balanced by more effective accountability in how they exercise that freedom.

We will seek to drive up standards for some groups of unregulated health and social care workers to improve service users' experience through a system of assured voluntary registration. Employers and commissioners will be able to give preference to workers on voluntary registers to ensure that they contract with suitably skilled and qualified workers. In line with the Government’s overall social work reform programme, the proposals will also strengthen social work as a profession in England.

Enabling Excellence - Autonomy and Accountability for Healthcare Workers, Social Workers and Social Care Workers is available to hon Members from the Vote Office and to noble Lords from the Printed Paper Office.

LINK TO COMMAND PAPER HERE

The collapse of HPC procedure on capturing Counselling & Psychotherapy

Here's a link to a report of the final meeting of the Professional Liaison Group for Counselling and Psychotherapy. As we know, the process for capturing this field was originally supposed to end in October 2009. It failed. Instead of recognising its inappropriateness as regulator for this practice, the HPC scheduled another set of meetings, and relied on its power to shove things through regardless. The PLG was given another year to come up with the all important standards and entry requirements. It failed again. Instead of admitting defeat, the HPC still clings to its power and in a dazzling display of nincompoopery Di Waller and Marc Seale vowed 'this is not the end'. Annie Turner, true to form, reckoned the Council would settle it all with a vote. After all, it will be easier for them to decide on entry standards etc, not being cluttered up with any knowledge of, or responsibility for the practical problems and all. In fact this will even guarantee them a good supply of complaints from the field in future which can be counted as 'proof' of their indispensability! Click the heading to read the report.