Memorandum 109

 

Submission from the Clinical Psychology Unit, University of Sheffield

 

Unit Director: Prof Graham Turpin

Assistant Unit Director : Prof Pauline Slade

Course Director: Prof Gillian Hardy

 

 

Clinical Practice Director: Dr Jan Hughes

Course Administrator: Carole Gillespie

 

I should like to submit written evidence concerning the above enquiry. This submission is offered in a personal capacity but is based on over twenty-five years of experience training psychologists and other mental health professionals in psychological therapies.

 

I am currently the Director of the Clinical Psychology Unit at the University of Sheffield. I have been the Chair of the British Psychological Society's Division of Clinical Psychology and also Chaired the relevant groups for accrediting the training of clinical psychologists within the UK and also representing the thirty or so universities which provide training courses.

 

Currently, I am seconded via the Care Services Improvement Partnership/ National Institute of Mental Health England to the DH/NIMHE/ CSIP Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Programme as Associate Director, Workforce responsible for developing education and training to support the workforce required to deliver this programme.

 

My evidence is therefore informed by my current engagement with workforce development around improving access to psychological therapies and my professional involvement in clinical psychology training.

 

 

Introduction

 

1. I am strongly opposed to the general principle underlying the proposal to withdraw funding from ELQs. Any development that restricts individuals' access to retraining or up-skilling will adversely affect the implementation of the government's policies to support Life Long Learning and Continuing Professional Development.

 

2. I have a particular concern about the implications for the education and training of health care professionals. In recent years, great emphasis has been placed on moving away from traditional forms of professional education, with a greater focus on New Ways of Working such as job flexibility, specific training of required competencies, and the idea of "a skills escalator". The latter describes a process whereby healthcare professionals are engaged in continuous of learning and acquiring greater and more relevant skills and competencies within the job which will ultimately be beneficial to patient care. A consequence of such an approach is that individuals are encouraged to switch careers/professions and take up programmes of education throughout their NHS careers. It also allows the creation of new jobs outside of traditional professions. Such flexibility has to take into account that individuals will have studied different subjects, courses, different levels of award and degrees, etc. Indeed, it is important that individuals are able to move between subjects, disciplines and courses easily, and recently the adoption of Accreditation of Prior Learning/Experience procedures within Higher Education Institutions has facilitated these developments. The withdrawal of funding for ELQs will have a major negative impact on these developments and potentially undermine the progress made in recent years in training flexible and competent health care professionals.

 

3. More specifically, I fear these proposals will impact negatively on the training of applied psychologists, counsellors and psychological therapists. In order to listen, understand, empathise, support and help vulnerable individuals in distress, it is desirable that those training for these often challenging and difficult roles/ professions require considerable personal maturity and integrity, together with experience of life. As with the clergy, it is neither desirable nor realistic to expect to train therapists and counsellors directly following leaving school. It is particularly common, if not an essential requirement, that trainees in applied psychology, counselling and psychotherapy will have studied a prior subject at university and will have been working in a related but different healthcare profession (e.g. nursing, social work etc). In the case of applied psychology, which is taught at a doctoral level, trainees have to have first successfully graduated from an undergraduate degree in psychology. This means that other health professions wishing to become applied psychologists would be essentially barred from doing so, if ELQ funding were withdrawn. Nurses, social workers, occupational therapists wishing to retrain as applied psychologists are likely to have studied already for an undergraduate degree, but would be prevented from studying a further psychology degree required in order to study applied psychology at a doctoral level.

 

4. The above argument can also be made for healthcare professionals wishing to undergo other forms of training in psychological therapies including degrees, postgraduate diplomas/certificates and masters degrees in various forms of psychological therapies including: child psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, dynamic therapy, systemic and family therapy etc.

 

5. Any development that impacts negatively on psychological therapies training is likely to undermine a major initiative announced by the Secretary of State for Health, the Rt Hon Alan Johnson to the Commons in October which envisaged the investment of £173 million pounds in expanding psychological therapy services. It is planned that a further 3,600 newly-trained psychological therapists will be produced mainly by university run courses and commissioned by the Strategic Health Authorities over the next three years. I believe that this proposal to withdraw funding could possibly de-stabilise this ambitious programme designed to provide better therapy services for some of the most disadvantaged in society suffering from chronic depression and anxiety. I believe that many mental health charities and professional bodies (e.g. BAP, BACP, BABCP, BPS, Relate) associated with psychological therapies have already made strong protests along similar lines. Accordingly, it is important that these objections are considered with the utmost importance.

 

 

Recommendations

 

1. I believe that there needs to be a detailed review of this proposed policy and its possible impact on healthcare education. Such a review should be cross-departmental and directly involve the Department of Health.

 

2. If the proposals are persisted with, then it will be imperative that further exemptions for routes into clinical psychology and other NHS-related psychology/mental health/ psychotherapy trainings are made. This should consider students across all levels of healthcare training from foundation degrees through to clinical doctorates. It will be important that courses specifically in psychology, counselling and psychotherapy, or other trainings associated with mental health care provision, are exempted from these arrangements, alongside the exemptions already identified for doctors and nurses. Essentially the same arguments also apply.

 

 

 

Professor Graham Turpin

 

January 2008