DCP Workforce and Training update

NHS England abolition

On 13 March 2025 the Prime Minister announced that NHSE would be abolished, and the Department of Health and Social Care would take on the NHSE functions that were still essential to the running and delivery of the NHS and social care. 

It is envisaged that this change will be complete within two years and that this will place the NHS at the heart of Government and will produce very significant savings that would be fed back into services. In addition, Integrated Care Boards would be required to reduce running costs by 50 per cent. Staff in those organisations are likely to feel quite vulnerable and we wish that their wellbeing is consider carefully during this organisational change. We will be lobbying to ensure that the psychological workforce has a place within the newly emerging department and is able to offer support and advice about shaping and implementing policy that's essential to delivering effective services. 

New Chief Psychological Professions Officer for Northern Ireland

After significant efforts by the psychological professions in Northern Ireland and the support of the DCP and BPS, a new part-time Chief Psychological Professions Officer post has been established in Northern Ireland. This means that for the first time, Northern Ireland will have an appointment at the heart of the Department of Health The process of recruitment has begun, and we look forward to working with the person appointed. 

Recent NHS Executive and HEIW appointments in Wales

We are really pleased to be able to report on two senior psychological staff appointments at the centre of the NHS in Wales. They are Dr Jenny Hunt as Clinical Lead for Psychological Therapies NHS Wales Executive and Dr Charlotte Montgomery as Associate Director of Workforce Transformation: Psychological Therapies, HEIW. 

Review of BPS's Accreditation Criteria for Clinical Psychology Programmes

The major review of the Accreditation Criteria, followed by extensive consultation has now been completed. The updated standards are currently at the final publication stage. The amount of work involved in this review was considerable and many thanks go to CTCP and the leadership for conducting this in such a thoughtful and thorough manner. There is a two year implementation time frame for courses to fully meet the new criteria.

NHSE Recognised Registers

The NHSE Recognised Registration paper is close to being ready for the NHS England approval process. This will require the psychological professions in the NHSE taxonomy to be on particular Professional Standards Authority (PSA) approved professional registers (e.g. clinical psychologists on the HCPC register). This will help the NHS ensure that the psychological professions' staff employed by the NHS are appropriately qualified, regularly engage in CPD and that patients have a registering body to whom they can complain if the practitioner fails to meet the approved standards of professional practice. The BPS now holds a PSA approved register for a number of the psychological professions in the register, including, psychological wellbeing practitioners (PWPs), education mental health practitioners (EMHPs), children wellbeing practitioner (CWPs), clinical associate psychologists (CAPs in England) and clinical associate applied psychology (CAAPs in Scotland). 

NHSE benchmarking survey for the psychological professions 2024

The 2024 collection of data information about the psychological professions in England was completed in 2024 and the analysis of these data is currently being undertaken. This is an extremely important survey as it provides the most comprehensive picture of the psychological professions working in the NHS. We are please to report that Trust completion rates were higher than in the 2023 survey. The report of the results of the survey will be available within the next few months and we will report on the headlines and provide a link in the next update.

Guidance on the use of placement tariff funds

This item appeared in our last update but is worth repeating in case people have missed this news. Annually DHSC publishes guidance on central financial support for trainee placements in England. This has now been published with input from the DCOP and is now available. This now includes specific guidance in the appendix about how funds should be used to support clinical psychology placements. 

Responsible (approved) clinician podcast

A podcast of an interview with Professor John Taylor and Dr Esther Cohen-Tovee by Tony Lavender about the Responsible Clinician role is now available. The coverage includes what is involved in the role, the training required, what a clinical psychologists can bring to the role and the issues to consider when attempting to help NHS Trusts to adopt the role. The podcast is available here.

HCPC and the BPS HSPC Working Group

Tony Lavender (working group chair) and Zosia Walecka (BPS staff) have continued to meet with the HCPC and the Professional Standards Authority (PSA, the regulator of the regulators) throughout the year. 

We have provided induction sessions to HCPC staff to familiarise with the training and working contexts of Clinical Psychologists. We have also provided a Fitness to Practice webinar for practitioner psychologists in conjunction with HCPC, the PSA and Unite and have plans to repeat this in 2025.

We continue to lobby HCPC to improve their Fitness to Practice processes and to raise concerns of members. If there are particular issues you wish to raise please get in touch.

Finally, HCPC has launched a free service to support registrants going through Fitness to Practice.