What immediately follows is the verbatim
Press release from the government QUANGO which used to be called The Commission
for the Regulation
of the HeAlth
Professions
until it overstepped the bounds of modesty and accepted the rather
pompous title of The Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence.
They then went on to adopt a logo which
warned people to expect a lot of old balls.
It will be recalled that CRAP was spawned
by that arch-Blairite, lately unlamented Secretary of State for Health,
the Rt Hon Alan Milburn whose mission in life seemed to be to denigrate the
medical profession by imposing one useless regulatory QUANGO after
another on them. The ultimate aim being to discredit the
profession in the eyes of the public. At present the medical
profession is held in high esteem. Blair does not wish that to
continue.
A Commentary upon the CRAP Press Release
follows it
The Press Release
NEWS RELEASE
The Council for
Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) Makes First
Official Report To Parliament
The Council for Healthcare
Regulatory Excellence (CHRE), the organisation established to improve
the quality of regulation in the health sector, has published its first
Annual Report.
As an independent body that is accountable to Parliament, CHRE’s
Annual Report acts as a mechanism to officially report its activities
and outline the direction it has set for the forthcoming year.
The Annual Report states that since it was established in April 2003 the
CHRE has:
CHRE
Chairman Jane Wesson said: “We have been established as a lean
organisation that has a clear mandate to improve the quality of
regulation in the healthcare sector and act as the guardian of public
interest.
“It
is a challenging role and I am delighted by the progress we have made in
a short period of time. Our aim is to help regulators improve and become
more responsive to the public’s expectations.
I believe we are now well placed to build upon the significant
changes that have already been implemented, support the regulators in
their drive to implement good practice and increase their effectiveness
in protecting the public.”
The
Annual Report also identifies four key challenges for the future:
CHRE’s
approach to addressing these key issues is outlined in its business plan
for 2004/2005, and Director Sandy Forrest is confident it can achieve
its objectives. He said: “We have achieved a considerable amount in
our first year working in a complicated arena. Much attention has been
given to our power under section 29 of the National Health Service
Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002 to refer fitness to practise
decisions made by the regulators to the High Court, which is a crucial
part of our remit but only one aspect of our work.
“In
the next year we aim to work ever more closely with regulators to
support their efforts to develop and maintain competence and to add
value to their work of enhancing public protection.”
A
full copy of the Annual Report and the Business Plan is available on the
CHRE website: www.chre.org.uk
Notes
1.
The Council was established on
1 April 2003
to:
·
Promote
the interests of the public and patients in the regulation of the
healthcare professions.
·
Promote
best practice in the regulation of the healthcare professions.
·
Develop
principles for good professionally-led regulation.
·
Promote
co-operation between regulatory bodies and other organisations.
2.
CHRE is an overarching, independent body which oversees the
regulatory work of the following nine organisations:
The General Chiropractic Council
The
General Dental Council
The
General Medical Council
The
General Optical Council
The
General Osteopathic Council
The
Health Professions Council
The
Nursing and Midwifery Council
The
Pharmaceutical Society of
Northern Ireland
The
Royal Pharmaceutical Society of
Great Britain
.
3.
The need for a body like CHRE was identified in the NHS
Plan and reinforced in July 2001 by the Report of the Bristol
Royal Infirmary Inquiry chaired by Sir Ian Kennedy.
4.
CHRE changed its name from the Council for the Regulation of
Healthcare Professionals (CRHP) in July 2004 because it better reflects
the role and purpose of the UK-wide organisation and avoids possible
confusion with bodies of a similar name.
5.
Cases referred to court under Section 29 of the National Health
Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002 will for the time
being be brought under the name of CRHP because this is currently the
statutory name of the organisation.
------------------------------------
Commentary
on the CRAP News release
Introduction
Let there be no
mistake CRAP was formed by the Blair government to smash professional
self-regulation by the back door. Blair never seems to do
anything openly, always surreptitiously, as with his massive increase in
taxation of the population, and his making war in Iraq.
Whilst the BMA
Council and the GMC were spending endless hours reforming the GMC to make it
"more responsive" Blairite minister Alan Milburn was quietly
putting together yet another of his QUANGOs. Although he
attended many meetings with the GMC he never once hinted at the
over-arching body he was about to drop on the professions.
Appropriately
it was born on April Fools Day 2003 and, as with virtually every other
government QUANGO dreamed up by Mr Milburn it was "welcomed"
by the Chairman of GPC who obviously had no conception of the potential
consequences and who seemed to trust this
government. One or two of us, literally, in
Council realised the danger and spoke up to alert the BMA but were
ignored.
countrydoctor
carried a strongly anti-CRAP item even before that Council
meeting. It led the way.
Commentary
In the
"Notes" following the Report precis the CRAP states that
"The need for (it) was
identified in The NHS Plan" which is rather like saying
that burglars have identified a need for loot. Blair and
Milburn were always going to trump up some spurious "need" to
do what they wanted, hence the Iraq War.
In truth, there
was and is no need for CRAP. The medical profession, at least, was
well on the way to reforming itself in the most ingratiating way it
could to government and Blair knew that very well.
1.
CRAP calls itself "an independent body that is answerable to
Parliament". How were its members appointed and by
whom? And answering to the massive Blairite majority may
well be democratic but what it effectively means is that it follows this
government's policy.
2.
The Page 1 bullet points:
"Completed
its first performance review of the work of the Regulators"
Totally unnecessary as each Regulator carries out its own
review. It implies a lack of trust and the self-creation of
something to do to justify its existence.
"Reviewed
the disciplinary decisions and referred the unduly lenient to the High
Court"
In short it has been created to smash self-regulation. Let
there be no doubt about that. There is a danger that
CRAP will refer merely to justify its own existence and
importance. It does not refer the judgements which are too
harsh.
"Promoted
best practice by enhancing communications etc"
It did not require an over-expensive QUANGO to do that. The
healthcare professionals are all intelligent people and capable of
talking to each other without the interference of CRAP.
"Published
a landmark scoping study of the nine regulators' work"
Well, bully for CRAP. Each of the regulators is capable
of doing that for itself and publishing it. Does the government
trust the professions so little that they have to set up a QUANGO just
to be sure the professions don't hide anything from them?
"Identified
challenges facing the regulation of healthcare professionals etc"
In short, this means that CRAP has been looking deeply into how to
further increase its influence and control over the profession and it
has "identified a strategic plan to" do
that. Once again a confirmation of the removal of
self-regulation and official arrogance.
"Established
the organisation and systems it needs to fulfil its objectives"
And let us remember that its objective is to control the professions
and leave as little power in the hands of the professional bodies as
possible.
The Chairman
rather smugly says that they have a "clear mandate to improve
the quality of regulation in the healthcare sector and act as the
guardian of public interest". So now we know, if we
hadn't already worked it out, this unelected, appointed rather nasty
little body sees itself as being in control of all the health
professions. No doubt it will allow the GMC to bark to its tune
from time to tie.
She continues,
emphasising CRAP's self-importance and arrogance, saying "Our
aim is to help regulators to improve etc and increase their
effectiveness in protecting the public". Beware
when a government QUANGO offers help, what it really intends to do is to
impose
The other
four bullets:
Not a single
one of those requires the intervention of a government QUANGO.
Every one is already being carried out by the GMC, in the case of the
medical profession. For CRAP to repeat the exercise smacks,
once again, of creating work for the sake of something to do to justify
its existence.
So, what's
different from all the other Milburn QUANGOs?
Note 1 - The
reasons for CRAP's creation
The medical
profession, for one, devoted a great deal of time and effort into
answering the government's, frequently unreasonable, criticisms. I
know because I was a member of the BMA Council throughout all the
discussions and we were assured that self-regulation would
remain. Milburn and Blair deceitfully broke that
assurance by creating CRAP which effectively has removed all vestige of
self-regulation.
CRAP has been
in existence one year and considers itself capable of running all the
professions.
It is a
superfluous body so far as public protection is concerned and serves
only to satisfy the Prime MInister's lust for control of the medical
profession.
The sooner it
is abolished the better.
If only this
Blair government could have been honest for a change. It was
always Blair's intention to rigidly control the medical
profession. It's just that he did not have the courage or honesty
to say so.
David
Roberts
(11/9/04)
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