Hi all, 

Many health psychology trainees in the UK undertake the British Psychological Society's Qualification in Health Psychology (Stage 2) via the 'independent route' which confers eligibility to apply for Chartership within the BPS and to apply to register with the HPC as a Health Psychologist. 

Though the qualification is described as a 'doctoral level award', its independent nature means that successful completers aren't currently awarded a doctorate. 

There are ongoing discussions amongst staff based at some of the Universities which already offer a taught Health Psychology doctorate and amongst stage 2 trainees, about the possibility of a 'top-up doctorate' for those who have their BPS stage 2 qualification. The idea is that they would register with the university, and complete extra work required to graduate from the university with a doctorate. 

One such university is the University of West England, whose programme leader Julian Bath has recently sent me this  email with some details worked out with the Health Group (see below). 

I'm posting this as he would be glad to hear from anybody else who is interested in this option, so please feel free to drop him an email at [log in to unmask] with an expression of interest and further questions! 

Best wishes
Eleanor 

Email from Julian Bath, Programme Manager for Professional Doctorate in Health Psychology at UWE:

"We have now had the meeting and a thorough discussion in the Health Group about the issues involved in the provision of a  top up doctorate.
 
As far as UWE are concerned we can accept students to ‘top up’ under our existing regulations and therefore the Research Degrees manager does not see the need to develop a new award. This is good in some respects  in that the process of regulation would take a long, long time! However it means that you and other colleagues would need to enrol on to our Professional Doctorate in Health Psychology and achieve 150 UWE credits to gain the doctoral award as well as submit a doctoral level piece of research. You would be able to APL (Accredited Prior Learning) 100 credits from your stage 2 award and this would leave 50 credits to be gained at UWE. Our initial thoughts are that this could be an updated systematic review (30 credits) and another relevant 30 credit module that we would adapt for purpose. You would need a well developed plan for the research component before registering and could then submit the thesis early under the current regulations. The minimum time it is likely/possible to submit would be 18 months, I believe. 
 
I am not sure how appealing this route is likely to be to you and your colleagues but it looks like this will be the only option at UWE for the foreseeable future.
 
Best wishes, Julian"


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