Statutory Regulation and the future of Sport Rehabilitation - from Steve Aspinall, BASRaT Chair
BASRaT is the only UK organisation that solely accredits BSc (Hons) degree level programmes in the field of Sports
and Exercise Medicine. As this field is developing within the UK, many institutions are being encouraged to run
courses in this area, often without appropriate expertise, facilities or resources. We strongly believe, that it
is both unethical and inappropriate for the training of this UK Sports Medicine professional to develop in this
manner, especially in numbers that are clearly inappropriate for the UK job market. As front line medical
professionals, education and training in this area needs to be of an equitable and high standard across the board.
This is why all of our institutions undergo a rigorous accreditation process, that covers everything from expertise,
facilities and resources to content, assessment, contact hours, staff/student ratios and clinical experience.
This is, and always has been, the position that BASRaT represents and we will continue to fight for this in the
development of our profession and appropriate statutory regulation.
There is a lot of misinformation about the process of statutory regulation, but the only real source for accurate
information is clearly the Health Professions Council themselves. You do not have to be a member of any organisation
to be included in the statutory regulation of a particular profession, although this can obviously help by ensuring
that you meet the high standards set by professional bodies like BASRaT.
A word on professional bodies:
" Normally, if an application is made to the Council, this application is made by a professional body.
This is helpful to the process of regulating a new group, since it is the professional body who have the
knowledge and expertise of the new group, and who can advise the Council on, for example, current educational
standards or requirements, the development of the profession, and its relationship to other professions.
Their application provides the opportunity for the professional body to give information to our Council about
how their group meets our standards, and for the Council to ask questions of the representatives.
However, we recognise that some members of an aspirant group may not be members of the professional organisation
which contacts us. Regulation with us is not dependent upon being a member of a professional body. If we regulate a
new profession, then we will regulate all members of that profession who meet the standards we set, regardless of
whether they choose to be members of any professional body.
We also recognise that in some cases there is more than one professional body for a group. In this case, we
strongly encourage professional bodies to work together on a joint application where possible, or to co-operate on
joint work around standards, or joint work to show how their various memberships are similar / different. If there
is more than one professional body, we would expect to work with all relevant organisations wherever possible, and would
welcome input from a variety of different groups to ensure that we can regulate the new group effectively."
Source: HPC website - link www.hpc-uk.org/aboutregistration/newprofessions/organisations
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