Please note that the Prince of Wales’s Foundation for Integrated Health has been renamed the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, so we will henceforward refer to POWFIH as PFIH.
Earlier this month, PFIH has published a consultation document, “Exploring a Federal Approach to Voluntary Self Regulation of Complementary Healthcare”. As the name suggests, this is the long-awaited consultation on whether different complementary therapies should be regulated by the same regulator. This was the recommendation in a report commissioned by PFIH last year from Professor Julie Stone of the University of Lincoln.
PFIH and The Bowen Forum both agree that a federal system of Voluntary Self Regulation is the best way forward, and we are encouraging all Bowen therapists to respond to the consultation. The consultation runs until 28 July 2006, but if you are feeding in your comments through The Bowen Forum, please send them to us by 21 July 2006. There is a new section on the consultation on the website. PFIH has awarded The Bowen Forum a grant of £850 towards the additional costs incurred in respect of the consultation.
We really want to hear your views, and so as an incentive, any Bowen therapist who responds to the consultation will have their name entered into a raffle. There will be two prizes, each of two free Bowen CPD days.
We would like to pass on a very big thank you to all the therapists who gave up so much of their time to take part in the working party that has been drafting National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Bowen.
The working party met regularly between October and January, and then held the final meeting in April, following the consultation on NOS. These meetings were facilitated by Skills for Health, which is the Sector Skills Council for Health within the UK and is the Government approved Standards Setting Body for Health Sector professions. The consultation on the draft standards is now over, and the draft standards are now awaiting sign-off from the Skills for Health Programme Board. Thanks also to the few who responded to the consultation, or who attended one of the workshops in February.
PFIH would like to pass on its thanks to those therapists who took time to fill in a short questionnaire on CPD. The response from Bowen therapists was very impressive.
The Bowen Forum has applied for a renewal of the grant received from PFIH in 2005/6, and has submitted its annual report to PFIH for the year to 31 March 2006. This document is available on the website.
The Bowen Forum website, www.bowenforum.org.uk, includes the quarterly newsletters, answers to a number of Frequently Asked Questions, and a section providing a simple guide to regulation. Recent changes include a new section on the consultation on a federal regulatory body, a diagram illustrating a possible structure for a federal system of Voluntary Self Regulation, and the executive report to PFIH for the grant period to 31 March 2006.
If anyone has any feedback on the website, suggestions for improvements, or any questions about any aspect of the regulatory process, please e-mail us at info@bowenforum.org.uk.
The AGM will be taking place on Saturday 30 September 2006 at:
Lydalls Hall
40-42 Lydalls Road
Didcot
Oxfordshire
OX11 7HX
Please put this date in your diaries, and we look forward to seeing as many as possible of you there. There is no charge for attending.
In addition to the ordinary business of the AGM, the main part of the day will be taken up with a discussion on the work of the Forum. We should have an indication of how the consultation has progressed by then, and so we will be able to tell you about it and to discuss the next steps.
This electronic newsletter will be posted on the website, giving details of recent developments towards voluntary self regulation. If anyone is interested in a version by e-mail, along with news of when the website has been updated, then please e-mail us at info@bowenforum.org.uk, and ask to be put on our mailing list. We regret that it is not feasible for us to provide any information in hard copy, but as a result there is no charge for being on the mailing list.
Please also note that the Bowen Forum isn’t a membership association for therapists, and being on the mailing list does not confer any regulated status – it is purely a way of ensuring that you can keep up to date with developments in the field of regulation.