Workforce and training updates - October 2021

HCPC

The BPS Practice Board has established an HCPC Working Group to address the issues that have arisen over the years about the working of HCPC for practitioner psychologists. The BPS used to have regular meetings with HCPC and the intention is to re-establish this contact.

The group was previously chaired by Kath- erine Carpenter who has needed to give up the role because of her responsibilities as the newly elected BPS President. Tony Lavender has agreed to take up the role of chair. We have collated the issues that we have noticed and that have been drawn to our attention by members (thanks to members who submitted points) and we will be developing plans in relation to those issues.

Issues raised have included:

• who should be the regulator,
• communication from HCPC about re-registering, the misuse and evasion of titles,
• the approval processes for international colleagues,
• the relationship between BPS and HCPC accreditation processes,
• Fitness to Practice Standards and processes.

National Assessors update

Eric Karas has been in the role of Interim Chief National Assessor for the appointment to Consultant Posts and has, with the help of Hannah Farndon, successfully relaunched the Scheme. The role of the National Assessor is to advise employers on whether applicants meet the standards for appointment to the role of Applied Consultant Psychologists at Band 8C and above. We advise that national assessors are used for all consultant level appointments, An assessor can be identified by contacting the BPS Practice Team on: nationalassessors@ bps.org.uk

Guidelines on the appointment of consultant psychologists can be accessed here. It was always planned that Eric would stand down after the relaunch of the scheme and so we have sent a request to all Lead and National Assessors to apply for the Chief Assessor role. The advert request only went to the Leads and National Assessors because the Chief role requires someone with a good level of knowledge about the Scheme. We are all very pleased and grateful for the energy, ingenuity and thoughtfulness Eric has put into the role.