I've just been advised by the clerk to the petitions committee that the
supporting information has yet to be posted to the site as they are
experiencing 'technichal difficulties'. I therefore submit this material
here. Hopefully they'll get the gremlins out in the next couple of days.

<<Health is a devolved matter to the Scottish Parliament. Therefore the
responsibility of providing Scotland’s population with quality, safe and
effective healthcare lies entirely with the Scottish legislature. However,
the Westminster Parliament has reserved regulation of healthcare
professionals, which involves professional qualifications, eligibility to
practice and control over standards of professional competence and conduct
(G2 of Schedule 5 to the Scotland Act).

Health professionals are defined for this purpose as: doctors, dentists,
chiropodists and podiatrists, opticians, pharmacists, nurses,
physiotherapists, clinical scientists, dieticians, operating department
practitioners, orthoptists, paramedics, orthotists and prosthetists,
biomedical scientists, radiographers, speech and language therapists,
paramedics and art therapists.

Two exceptions are specified to the reservation. The Parliament does have
competence to legislate about what vocational training and experience is
necessary for doctors before they can provide general medical services in
the NHSiS (section 21 of the NHS (Scotland) Act 1978). The Parliament can
also legislate to regulate the provision of general dental services in the
NHSiS so far as that relates to vocational training and disciplinary
proceedings (section 25 of the NHS (Scotland) Act).

The Health Professions Council (HPC) is a new independent, UK-wide
regulatory body responsible for setting and maintaining standards of
professional training, performance and conduct of the 12 healthcare
professions that it regulates.The HPC was created by a piece of legislation
called the health professions order 2001 – a Statutory Instrument No 2,
which came into force on 12 February 2002.

Contained within this legislation was the power to protect the titles of
the regulated professions. It was envisaged that protection of the titles
would offer some safeguards to the public when making choices from the
available competencies. For example, prior to the Act, any person could
legally call himself or herself a chiropodist or podiatrist or
physiotherapist, without having gained any qualifications in that
discipline whatsoever. The primary objective of the HPC was to secure
effective regulation of all practitioners who practice in their respective
fields under the banner of the protected title.

Those practitioners who were already in practice but had no formal or
recognised qualifications could apply to be ‘grand-parented’ onto the new
register and it was initially envisaged that some form of test of
competence by applied to those persons, which would assure the public and
the professions of their suitability to undertake safe and effective
practice.

This process however has become notoriously lax and there is no examination
or test of competence to ensure safe and effective standards.Grand-parented
practitioners, with no formal training or qualifications, now have the same
legal basis for employment within Scotland’s NHS as a graduate
practitioner.

There is a clear and potential danger to the health and welfare of
Scotland’s population.

The Scottish Parliament may have the responsibility of providing healthcare
to its population but it is powerless to regulate and uphold standards to
those people it employs in its National Health Service.

That is an anomaly, I respectfully submit, should be addressed without
delay.>>

end.

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