British Psychoanalytic Council

BPC UPDATE ON STATUTORY REGULATION

Marc Seale, chief executive of the Health Professions Council (HPC) wrote to the Secretary of State for Health on 23 December 2009 advising him on the HPC’s position in respect of the Government’s policy on the regulation of psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors as set out in the Government’s White Paper, in particular the following section;

“...of psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors will be regulated by the Health Professions Council, following that Council’s rigorous process of assessing their regulatory needs and ensuring its system is capable of accommodating them. This will be the priority of future regulation.”

In the case of psychologists, the HPC opened the practitioner psychologists’ part of its Register on 1 July 2009 and is now regulating some 16,000 members of that profession.

HPC’s Council had met on 10 December 2009 and considered the results of the work from the Professional Liaison Group (PLG), together with the results of a consultation on its recommendations. Council had concluded that the regulatory needs of psychotherapists and counsellors can be met by the HPC using the regulatory ‘building blocks’ which it normally uses (i.e., protected titles, standards of proficiency, etc.).

HPC’s Council also concluded that a draft Section 60 Order should provide for:

•    A single ‘psychotherapists and counsellors’ part to be added to the HPC register
•    The titles ‘psychotherapist and ‘counsellor’ to be protected in relation to that part of the register
•    The period in which application for registration may be made via ‘grandparenting’ to be three years
•    Initial registration for those ‘transferring’ from voluntary registers to be conditional, to provide adequate time for duplicate entries, etc. In the various registers to be resolved.

The Council did not reach a conclusion on whether the two proposed protected titles should be regarded as interchangeable titles for one profession or separate titles for two, related professions. It is likely that this would need to be resolved as part of any consultation on a draft Section 60 Order.

Whilst the Council was satisfied that standards of proficiency could be prepared for psychotherapists and counsellors, it concluded that further work towards preparing such standards would need to await the outcome of its current review of the generic HPC standards of proficiency. That work is intended to ensure that the generic standards are less focussed upon the ‘medical model’ of health care delivery and thus provides the basis for regulation which is more inclusive of therapeutic models of practice. The Council agreed to return to the issue of the standards of proficiency once the current work has concluded.

LINKS TO HPC DOCUMENTS
The following are links to various relevant documents on the HPC website.

HPC position statement (10 December 2009)

HPC press release (10 December 2009)

HPC FAQ on regulation of psychotherapy and counselling

Summary of responses to HPC’s consultation on the work of the PLG

Conclusions document considered by HPC’s Council meeting on 10 December 2009

Final report of HPC’s Professional Liaison Group (PLG)

Draft standards of proficiency put forward by the PLG

Further Links

- Read the full FAQ from the Autumn 2009 edition of New Associations

- Our December 2009 update

- Our July 2009 update

- The BPC's own response to HPC’s consultation on statutory regulation of psychotherapists and counsellors

- Our position statement on statutory regulation

- Link to the Health Professions Council Psychotherapists and Counsellors Professional Liaison Group

Other organisations: where they stand

- United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy
- British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy
- British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies
- Association of Child Psychotherapists
- British Psychological Society