The Regulation Debate

The Regulation Debate has taken place

The votes have been counted

AND THE WINNERS ARE

Don Weed - ITM

AND

The CNHC

The Future of The Alexander Technique - What Next?

This website was originally set up by a group of teachers concerned about what regulation and the CNHC will mean for the future of the Alexander Technique, and the future of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique. 

The debate has now taken place and the site is currently being maintained by Mike Rawlinson, Independent Alexander Teacher

Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health Shut Down After Fraud Investigation

Although the CNHC has so far received little interest from the press, that changed a few weeks ago when it emerged that the Prince's Trust was to be shut down following criminal investigations of fraud and money laundering. The news was widely reported and of course the anti-alternative medicine lobby had a field day. The news broke only days before the general election otherwise it would probably have been broadcast more widely.

Given that the Prince's Trust started this whole regulation debacle by founding the CNHC, it is difficult to see how being associated with alternative medicine and the CNHC is going to enhance our professional standing.

A few years ago, clinical trials established that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) was effective in treating depression, and it became available on the NHS. Not surprisingly the NHS uses therapists trained on short courses, and as if this wasn't bad enough, NICE (The National Institute for Clinical Excellence) now recommends dispensing with therapists altogether and delivering Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for depression by computer in place of a therapist! You can read the full story in The Independent.

A few years ago, clinical trials established that The Alexander Technique was effective in treating low back pain..........

CNHC Register Latest

After almost five months of the register being open to Alexander Teachers, 97% of STAT members have not joined the CNHC !

Since the CNHC register opened to Alexander Teachers on January 4th, only 26 STAT members have joined the register, and of these, almost half are current or former council members, or were directly involved with regulation. There are about twice as many non STAT trained teachers on the register from ITM and PAAT.

Two Thirds of 'Alexander Teachers' on the CNHC register trained on one weekend a month, or part-time evening and weekend training courses!

We have to question whether it was worth all the strife and division in our Society to engage in a process from which we have so much to lose with no discernible benefits, in order to appease such a tiny minority of our members.

We are not classed as a  therapy..!

Just to allay any fears that the CNHC might see our work as a therapy, we copied this item, which was added to their website in April 

"Alexander Technique & Bowen Therapy

For information on Alexander Technique and Bowen Therapy, the contents of a typical therapy session and which conditions these therapies may help..............."

Do the CNHC not understand the difference between teaching and therapy, or do they have a different agenda?

According to a press release dated 1st April from the Department of Health Next steps for complementary therapy, practitioners of herbalism, acupuncture, and Chinese Medicine, (after waiting several years for the government to come up with the statutory regulation they need and were promised), are now to be compelled to register with the CNHC. The reasons are probably political as this will save the government from having to bother to go ahead with statutory regulation for these therapies, and will ensure a huge increase in members and a corresponding increase in income for the CNHC. thus saving the government from having to bail it out. 

From the point of view of the CNHC this is excellent news because compelling some therapies to register is the first step to compulsory regulation for all of us. And as if this was not bad enough, herbalists have been told "off the record" that they were going to become "statutorily regulated" under the CNHC. What this means is unclear, except perhaps that the CNHC will say anything to anyone to get them to sign up.

Fortunately early indications are that no one is falling for that one!

In case you didn't read the piece on the original petition site, the CNHC has been accused of lying about the number of registrants it has read here

By mid February the CNHC website claimed that it had 2000 therapists registered, although independent searches of the register indicate that the figure was more like 1600 - 1700. The higher figure seems to have been achieved by counting the number of masseurs and the number of reflexologists etc separately, although a fair number of therapists practice both. And there are some duplicate entries too. The latest independent figure s for CNHC membership (July 15th 2010) indicate that there are 2729 registrants in total

And the latest news from the CNHC website is that the register will soon be open to healers (didn't FM have something to say about healers?) and Cranial Sacral Therapy. It doesn't inspire a lot of confidence when the regulatory body doesn't appear to even know how to spell the name of the therapies it is regulating! (In case anyone from CNHC is reading this it's Cranio Sacral Therapy).

Well very little actually - (until recently - see separate item at the top of the page). The CNHC issues regular press releases that they publish on their website but we are not aware of any newspaper ever having published any of them. We have searched the on line editions of all major newspapers for any mention at all of the CNHC: the Independent hasn’t mentioned it, nor has the Daily Mail, and neither has the Telegraph. The Times gives it the briefest mention at the end of an article about medical misconduct, and it is left to the Guardian (a newspaper that recently printed a very positive feature about ex STAT head of training Jeanne Day) to give the public the 'facts' about the CNHC. Which it does in a lengthy and utterly scathing article titled.

Of course we can all be assured that registration with the CNHC is voluntary, but voluntary can mean different things to different people. Here is what Maggie Dunn, Chair of the CNHC said in a BBC interview under the heading

'The head of the UK's first regulator for complementary medicine has promised to get tough with the industry'

"As applying to the register is voluntary, Ms Dunn accepted that some therapists might not put themselves forward. But she said they would be found out in the end as "within a year or so" customers will be looking to only use therapists who have met the regulator's standards."

So those of us who don't sign up will be 'found out' by Ofquack!

This isn't quite what some of us understand by voluntary, and since when were we part of an industry, and how will the CNHC 'get tough' with us, and what will happen when we are 'found out'?

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