White Paper 'Trust Assurance and Safety - The Regulation of Health Professionals in the 21st Century'

The Government has announced plans to introduce statutory regulation for psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors. You can download the White Paper here and the UKCP response here.

The UKCP has campaigned since its inception in 1992 for the statutory regulation of psychotherapy. The UKCP is concerned that the Department of Health has not listened to the concerns of the profession that the Health Professions Council is not an appropriate regulator for psychotherapy, psychology and counselling. The HPC is primarily a medical and NHS model of regulation and the UKCP considers that the model proposed cannot effectively regulate psychotherapy. We have presented proposals for a more effective model of regulation that will go further than the HPC in protecting the public and the UKCP are disappointed that the Department of Health have ignored this proposal.

On Monday 5th February 2007, Lord Alderdice led a debate in the House of Lords on the question of progress towards statutory regulation of psychotherapists, psychologists and counsellors. The link to the debate is here and a transcript is here.

Psychotherapists in the NHS and Agenda for Change

The trade union Amicus has been raising concerns expressed by members and professional bodies over the impact of matching skill levels of psychotherapists with the NHS employers. Amicus believe that matching has undervalued psychotherapy roles particularly on Knowledge Training and Experience level. In addition, there is evidence that consistency checking has not taken place between psychotherapy and psychology roles at the same level of practice and/or responsibility. Finally, some psychotherapy roles have been matched against inappropriate profiles. In response to Amicus raising these concerns, the following advice has been issued: "The JEG Consistency Monitoring Group carried out some monitoring of how psychotherapy jobs were being matched. It has always been our advice that psychotherapy jobs should match to the Clinical Psychology profiles. However, we observed some evidence of psychotherapy jobs being inappropriately matched to the Counsellor Specialist profile, when the Principal Clinical Psychologist would have been more suitable. There was also limited evidence of non-matching to Clinical Psychology higher level profiles through under-assessment of KTE. This could lead to inconsistencies between grading of Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist jobs. In order to alert panels to this issue, we are shortly to publish a revised front page for the appropriate sub-family. Please disseminate this information to all JE Leads in your area and ask them to revisit psychotherapy outcomes where necessary".
Can you please ensure that this advice is being adopted in your Trust and if this is resisted please alert your Amicus Regional Officer. For further technical advice UKCP registrants should contact Debbie Watson, Amicus JE Lead:
To support Amicus in their research please complete our Agenda for Change questionnaire: 'Payscales for Psychotherapists in the NHS': Download questionnaire (Nov 2006)
For a copy of the current "National Profiles for Clinical Psychologists, Psychotherapists and Counsellors" click here for the PDF file or download. Pay particular attention to Note 2 on page 1. "Although training routes are different for clinical psychologists and psychotherapists, the levels of knowledge required are equivalent, so psychotherapist jobs can be matched to clinical psychology profiles on an equivalence basis for the KTE factor."
This means effectively that UKCP Registrant psychotherapists can apply for Clinical Psychology jobs in the NHS where knowledge, training and experience are equivalent. Some have already done so successfully. 
 

Improving Access to Psychological Therapies

There are Department of Health plans coming from the Layard Report to increase the available number of 'psychological therapists' to between 5,000-10,000 abd provide a new 'first' level of referral.
In June 2007, Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt announced a further £2 million investment with the 2 original project centres, in Doncaster & Newham, being expanded into 10 further sites. These 2 sites have already supported more than 5,000 people with quick-access, low-intensity CBT . The effectiveness of this is currently being assessed.
There are some concerns about this (currently) being too focused on CBT , and that the level of training given may be insufficient for the tasks being invisaged. Further developments on the IAPT 'initiative' are that the 'consultation' process continues and UKCP representatives, James Antrican and Sally Forster, are on the "IAPT Workforce Group".
Further informational links are: CSIP Choices in Mental Health, BPS - Division Clinical Psychology update, DoH specifications, Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health

Response to the Foster Review

UKCP produced a response to the Foster Review and has worked with the following organisations to produce proposals for a Psychological Professions Council
 

 The Association of Business Psychologists;
 The Association of Educational Psychologists;
 The Association of Heads of Psychology Departments;
 The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies;
 The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy;
 The British Association for Sports and Exercise Sciences;
 The British Psychological Society and
 The National Association of Principal Educational Psychologists

The Foster Review

UKCP Response to the Foster Review

Proposals for a Psychological Professions Council

UKCP mapping of competencies

UKCP has completed a mapping exercise and produced a report that builds on the previously developed work on the mapping of psychotherapists and counsellors, and the subsequent work on the development of a regulatory and competency framework linked to Standards of Proficiency, National Occupational Standards and current competencies for psychotherapy within UKCP.

The report clearly identifies the generic standards of a professional psychotherapist, and also identifies the additional skills, knowledge and understanding required of specialist practitioners.

The differences as they are outlined within the report are sufficiently substantive, philosophically, historically, methodologically and in practice, that they warrant ongoing development with the wider profession to assure protected titles.

Mapping generic standards & specialist competencies of psychotherapists

Letter Lisa Wake to DH 14th June 2006

Letter DH to Lisa Wake 8th November 2006

Letter Lisa Wake to DH 9th November 2006

IAPT Programme

Letter Lisa Wake to K Tyson 5th January 2007

K Tyson response to Lisa Wake 31st January 2007

Skills for Health Consultation

UKCP Response to Skills for Health Consultation

Write to your MP

Following Lord Layard's statement in July 2006, UKCP would like support in lobbying government to support its ongoing campaign to Improve Access to Psychological Therapies, ensuring that psychotherapists entering the NHS meet the training standards of UKCP as a non-negotiable requirement. A draft letter can be downloaded from this page (left column) and should be sent to your local MP and relevant ministers (shown below).

Find out who your local MP is by clicking on the following link: http://www.upmystreet.com/commons/l/. Your letter should include your home address to demonstrate that you are a constituent. Please also take this opportunity to inform MPs of any difficulties you have experienced in accessing psychological therapies and of current waiting lists facing clients who urgently need to engage in talking therapy.

Relevant ministers:

Rt. Hon. John Hutton MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Department of Work and Pensions, Richmond House, 79 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2NS Emails: or

Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, HM Treasury, 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ Emails: or

Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt MP, Secretary of State for Health, Department of Health, Richmond House, 79 Whitehall, London SW1A 2NS  Emails: or

IAPT Campaign - Draft MP Letter

UKCP Response to IAPT Strategy - January 2007

UKCP, 2nd Floor, Edward House, 2 Wakley Street, London, EC1V 7LT
Email :