This is the reply I will post on the SCP website.
1.We have a grandparenting period which ends next July.
2.These people are registered under the law
3.If they joined the Society, as many wish, they would strengthen our
position as the
premier representative body.
4.If they join they will have to carry out the same CPD as all other
members.
5.If they do not join we will only represent 75% of the registered
profession which will damage
our negotiating position and allow others to claim their representation of
part of the
registered profession.
6.This change is only available to those who are grandfathered by July 05.
7.The Council decision did not need any change to the Articles. The decision
was to
allow membership on the basis of the HPC process.
8.Mr Clarke states that he would not admit these people. He is entitled to
that view.
At what point do we move forwards? I note that my motives for asking Council
to consider these changes are often incorrectly attributed. My motives are
simple unify the profession and move on.
Reviewing the past and sniping achieve little and what we need is vision for
the future.
I was much moved by reading the autobigraphy of Nelson Mandela. He concluded
whilst in prison that the only way to progress was reconcilliation not
recrimination. He chose to start with his chief tormentor surmising that
success with him would be the best indicator. Bear in mind he had been
imprisoned for 30 years and seen friends die.
Now I am not suggesting that our situation has the same level of suffering
but surely the parallel can be drawn. We are all out there treating feet
lets make a scarifice if you see it as one so that we make a real benefit
for the future.
Ralph Graham
Ralph Graham
Consultant Podiatrist
Witham, Essex, UK
-----Original Message-----
From: A group for the academic discussion of current issues in podiatry
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Mark Russell
Sent: 06 September 2004 11:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The Reason of Things (Ralph Graham)
Dear Ralph
At the beginning of the year, Matthew Parris, writing in The Times noted
that one of the qualities needed of being a successful politician is to a
master in the back arts of sophistry. In an unrelated matter, I note you
didn’t address the points that I had made about consultation and
communication with the members and wider profession. In your note to Bill
and I, you make the case for the status quo but that is the argument and
it is not the process. It is the process that I have an issue with. I note
that you wrote to Sam Clarke on the SCP website and we spoke at length
last night then jointly penned a response. For the benefit of those
colleagues who don’t have access to the SCP site I have adopted it here,
with Sam’s consent, to restate my position. It’s Sam’s comments about the
red wine incidentally. Just so you know.
Kind regards.
Mark Russell
<<I raise the issue of the articles of association for a number of
reasons. First, I note from the information on this website that the
current articles do not allow membership without some examination being
set first by the Society – I take it to gauge competency and suitability
of character. If what you say is true, and I have no reason to suggest
otherwise, and council acted in the proper manner, then these articles
have been superseded. If that is the case, can you confirm that the
articles were changed and will you ensure the website details are updated
accordingly?
I also raise the issue because I had no idea what was going on until I
read your letter in the Journal. There’s been some rumours flying about
but that was all; I don’t recall it being a topic of conversation at the
Rx Summer School this year either. And on an issue of this magnitude I
would have thought there would have been some form of consultation with
membership before the articles were changed. I am perfectly willing to
have my elected representatives make decisions on my behalf for certain
matters. I don’t wish to be consulted whether you change the curtains at
Fellmongers, for instance. But on an issue of such importance, with all
the consequences of the action, I would have thought you’d do us the
courtesy of informing us, before the fact?
You may see it through other eyes, but from my perspective, and I suspect
many other members too, the impression left is that we have been ignored
and treated with impunity.
You asked me a couple of questions – whether I agreed that membership
should be open for all, and what I would do under the same circumstances.
First, I don’t think membership should be open to all. We have gone from
the point of having some benchmark to entry to one where we have none at
all. That cannot be right. You write in the Journal article, that not only
will the Society be accepting membership from all grand-parented
practitioners, even though some are clearly of questionable standard, but
you will also be coaching the people who didn’t make it through the (lax)
scrutiny of the HPC process (so God knows what these people are like), in
order to be successful in future application! Eh? I look forward to the
day when a blind thalidomide gains registration and membership and proudly
hangs his plate outside the surgery door, courtesy of the Society’s fast
track coaching trip. We’ve criticised SMAE for years for offering a two
year part-time course, but at least they had some form of training. Please
tell me that there will be some form of rigorous examination to vet the
suitability for these people and your not going to do this by sending out
a CDRom or a glossy brochure so they can read up how to get through the
registration process by writing the form out properly. It’s bad enough for
undergraduates to see the grand-parented chiropodists gaining equality of
membership without having the burden of student loans to cripple them, but
to hear you propose coaching the failed candidates must drive them to
despair. If the HPC’s process is a mess, then I fear the Society’s is far
worse.
Second, what would I do under the same circumstance? The answer to that
would be nothing, without having prior discussion and debate will every
single member in this organisation. You made your case for what you did,
but I hold a different view from that you gave. If the reality of the
situation was that the Society had to offer, or felt it desirable to
offer, membership to the grand-parented clinician, then I would ensure
that some form of testing examination was set before full membership was
accepted. That is, after all, what we demand from our own students. The LA
requirement you wrote of hardly constitutes a ‘testing’ standard in my
opinion. It would be fairly easy to have an individual to study for this
module alone and know nothing about physiology or disease of the foot; he
or she could be a disaster waiting to happen, and suddenly they have
equality in employment rights and equality of membership as someone as
experienced as yourself. Am I going mad or is it the liberal consumption
if vin rouge over the last few weeks? I don’t know even more.
In fact I would probably not even offer an examination. The Society is a
representative organisation. It is not the regulator. I believe that
vetting of competency to practice is the responsibility of the latter and
clearly, as you yourself have noted, it is failing in its duty to the
public. In that respect I would mount a high profile campaign, writing to
the media, instructing the lobbying company to lodge EDM’s (there have
been none of either, I note) and doing absolutely everything possible to
ensure that Joe Public knows what is going on. Instead we are treated on
to the unsavoury reading of the war between Faculty of Surgeons and the
British Orthopaedic Association. Pass the red wine please.
My main question to you was why the membership was not informed not what I
would do in similar circumstances. I would have been perfectly willing to
listen to your point of view, then I could have considered the
implications of the policy and came to a reasoned judgement of my own. It
is the failure of THAT process which I object to and I believe that you
and Council and the Chief Executive [as a signatory to the Journal letter]
should apologise unreservedly for proceeding as you did without prior
consultation or debate.
But of course, that is a matter for your own conscience.>>
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