Jucial Review, appealing against the HPC decisions

Someone had been advised by the HPC that the only means of redress open to them after a decision had been made by the HPC was via a judicial review. They duly set one in process, and hired a solicitor. Only then did they discover that they were not in a position to put such a process into play.

This case involved an NHS manager who had been sacked. The HPC tend to trawl these cases and bring them into their own net to re-play the scene and ring out the surplus value. The upshot of this is that the HPC then becomes the complainant in the HPC Process. People who had been involved in the original case might be forgiven for thinking that they still had a part in this second playing of the scene, but in fact they don't. The HPC take over the show - in this way they act on behalf of an imaginary public and take a local sacking into a national misdemeanour.

There are two threads - one is the way a local event is passed to a central court (local difficulties acquire national status), the other is the question of self interest. The original professions were attacked on the grounds that they couldn't be trusted to keep their house in order as they were likely to be biased in their own favour. This inconvenient truth, however, also applies to any new body set up to keep order, it is part of life and must be dealt with by each of us as we act. The idea was that the HPC would always be objective because it has no interest in the professions it manages. However, this completely ignores the interest it has in maintaining itself - it is a naive, puerile view. The HPC is left with no other purpose than to maintain a register and police it - it is administrator, law enforcer, law interpreter, law maker. In the case of the original professions they were also interested in the work itself, and the knowledge pertaining to the work. In fact they were more interested in the work itself for without it they would cease to exist. In the case of the HPC their work - their trade, their profession so to speak - is administrative and legal. They are not interested in the actual work of the people over whom they have such far reaching legal powers. Their business is collecting names onto registers (and money associated), arranging the lists, creating sets of abstract standards of character and practise at a distance, and of enforcing these standards. That's it. It is a false profession, based on nothing. They are under the jurisdiction of another such body (the CHRE) and each of these is under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, as far as I can see.

My contention is that the HPC is an artificial creation based on a false assumption. This is very shaky ground which sets up a need for a strong policing in order to make it work - an artificial force takes the place of any possible natural order. This sets up an absolute system and places far too much power in the hands of a small set of people. It is a very tricky situation, and one which is out of balance with the requirements of the situation.

It has been very common to explain the creation of the HPC and the CHRE through reference to Harold Shipman. The fear that is created by this move is two fold. There is the fear invoked through reference to a serial killer, and there is fear invoked by the irrationality of the reference to the subject in question. That is, there is no rational link between this murderer, and the creation of a large list, a centralised knowledge base, and an aggressive police force. The link has more in common with a paranoid idea than it does with reason, experience, and rationality.

HPC & Psychology

The Health Professions Council was set up by the Health Professionals Order passed by the Privy Council in 2001. The Privy Council is a Government operational arm which is separate from the judicial system, and operates through the Lord Chancellor and the courts. Traditionally it is reckoned to be an unusual way of using power, and is reserved for extreme emergencies such as would happen in war. Tony Blair's Government, however, made frequent use of it. The object or aim of HPO2001 is to 'safeguard health and wellbeing' by State registration and regulation of a whole range of people who practise a very wide variety of professions. A secondary function of this legislation, tho not named in the documentation, is to give government approval to those who sign up in the form of legally protected titles. The psychologists have wanted this status since the early 1980's, for example. It allows them to protect their practise from any competition.

Earlier this year (2008), there was a 'consultation' about section 60 of the Health Act 1999 which sets out to enrol psychologists into the HPC. Section 60 is contained in the Health Care and Associated Professions (Miscellaneous Amendments) No 2 Order 2008, and is tabled for consideration in the 08-09 session where it is expected to be passed in the Commons Select Committee on Health. The BPS (British Psychological Society) comment on this can be consulted on their web site (under ‘statutory legislation’, ‘latest updates’, ‘20 March 2008, 29 April and 22 May’.

The consultation took the form of a very biased questionnaire. It was biased in that it took for granted that everyone shares the government's opinion that 'professionals' must be regulated through the State machinery. The rhetoric that pretends to underpin this idea is that professionals are ipso facto a menace to the public. It is not uncommon for someone to start talking about Harold Shipman at this point as if this highly unusual man is somehow representative of professionals who are not registered by the State. This, of course, is nonsense.

The philosophy behind the HPO 2001 shares much with the work of Ian Kennedy, an academic lawyer. He chaired the commission of enquiry into the Bristol Royal Infirmary and is well known for his sustained attack against the medical profession published in his book (1981) The Unmasking of Medicine.