September 6, 2004
by Adam James

The British Psychological Society has hit back at accusations that it is so prejudiced towards overseas clinical psychologists that it could be breaking employment law.

The statement of equivalence procedure used by the British Psychological Society (BPS) to enable overseas clinical psychologists to work in the NHS is "deeply flawed" in its scientific validity, humanity and efficiency, consultant psychologist Martin Seager of North East London Mental Health Trust's department of psychological services has claimed.

However, Dr Jon Fraise, chair of the BPS's committee for the scrutiny of individual clinical qualifications, denied any law was being broken.

Dr Fraise told psychminded.co.uk that the BPS upholds the law 'robustly' in order to ensure that service users refered to a BPS-chartered clinical psychologist who trained overseas can be sure of his/her professionalism.

Writing in this month's edition of Clinical Psychology, Dr Seager compared the BPS to the character Scrooge in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol novel because of its "arrogant, elitist, egocentric and unaccountable" attitude towards overseas applicants.

Dr Seager questioned 27 (mostly European) overseas clinical psychologists who were current SoE applicants or ex-applicants, five training coordinators, seven other member of the clinical psychology profession, two potential SoE scrutiny committee members and two psychologists who were transferring between BPS divisions.

Dr Seager criticised the "lack of reliability" in the SoE scrutiny process, and the lack of clinical validity. Respondents, he said, described the process as adding little value to their clinical experience.

Dr Seager's paper - entitled 'Welcome to the UK' revisited: The Views of our profession on the BPS approach to the Statement of Equivalence - reported that none out 36 SoE applicants were satisfied with the BPS's approach.

However, Dr Fraise questioned the validity of Dr Seager's research, pointing out that respondents were "self-selected" and were "individuals with grievances"

Dr Fraise said: "I think you would need to see the comments he [Dr Seager] has received within the context that the BPS could be dealing with 800 to 900 SoE applicants per year."

Dr Fraise was one of a number of authors who, in the same edition of Clinical Psychology, wrote a paper entitled The Statement of Equivalence in Clinical Psychology: Problems and Proposals. The paper recognised there were a range of problems with the SoE system and it recommended changes to the SoE process. These included being more accountable and the introduction of accredited SoE courses.

However, Dr Seager claimed the BPS's present SoE process was so poor that the society could be in breach of employment law.

He wrote: "It was clarified for me by a number of respondents that the BPS stance towards SoE applications, at least for European candidates, could well be in breach of the law.

"The European Commission has confirmed in writing that for an applicant with a legitimate European training background, any requirement of the BPS that goes beyond a period of 'practical adaptation' is in breach of Directive 89/48/EEC.

"In effect, any requirement that a European-trained applicant should submit any written work (essay, research dissertation) or be orally examined is illegal.

"According to European law on transfer of workers between member countries, a placement (or perhaps two) within an unfamiliar area of clinical experience and a log of activities to demonstrate that the relevant experience has been gained is the most that can be asked for..

"The question must arise why no SOE applicant, possessing a European training background, has yet attempted to sue the BPS on this issue."

Dr Seager concluded: "The BPS approach to SoE gives off dangerous signals about not valuing trained professional from other cultures and appears to be at least implicitly prejudicial and ethnocentric."

However, Dr Fraise responded that the BPS had used a barrister to advise it on implementing European employment law.

"The barrister's position was that we [the BPS] are working within the word and the spirit of the law," he said.

Dr Fraise emphasised that because European countries have "dramatically different" clinical psychology training programs it was vital that the BPS was 'robust' in ensuring that applicants had gone through suitable professional acclimatisation before being granted a SoE.

"We have to protect people i.e. service users accessing our clinical psychology services," he said.

Dr Seager is pushing for a complete overhaul of the SoE process, including liaising with psychologist societies of other nations to devise a new process.

.....

BPS should work with other European countries

Comment from: Camilla Markussen, clinical psychologist, health centre, Norway
Date: September 9, 2004

"Having worked within the UK for a year as a clinical psychologist on a project on assistant psychology pay I have to say that I found the process of getting a statement of equivalence extremely difficult.

"I had to provide english transcripts from courses and coursework dated back seven years ago along with the signature of my (then) supervisor. This was for me impossible or at least too much work to get a statement of further training needs. Furthermore very few places hire a clinical psychologist that is not chartered within the BPS, even if the person is chartered abroad and has years of experience within his or her field.

"Hopefully the BPS will work together with other European countries on a consensus around the EuroPsychDiploma that has been proposed as a european measure of equivalence among psychology professionals."

.....

Overseas psychologists could enrich British psychology

Comment from: Ashley Douglass, locum clinical psychologist, youth offending team, UK
Date: September 9, 2004

"I am an Australian psychologist and my experiences with the BPS has been very poor. I was unable to speak to anyone when I was in Australia from the BPS who was higher than a administrator who did not understand anything about my circumstances. I was unsure of what level of membership I should apply for and found all the documents were not very clear on this.

"I have been advised by colleagues that the statement of equivalence is such a mammoth process it is not worth going through. Hence, I have been performing locum work which does not require chartered status.

"As a suggestion, the BPS should liase with psychological societies from different countries outlying the process for chartered status. My first point of call was the Australian Psychological Society for advice when thinking of working in London, but to my surprise, they knew nothing. If the BPS liased better with international psychological societies maybe British psychology would be further enriched with more professionals coming to England to work."

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Angry...and the NHS is losing out

Comment from: Mary Stones, psychologist, Assessment Unit for the National Society for Epilepsy, Chalfont St Peter, Bucks
Date: October 21, 2004

"I returned to UK in 1989 after completing a BA (hons), then a M.A.(applied) in Psych in Ontario, Canada.

"I had worked in the health care system for four years in Ontario (neuropsych rehab, psychiatric inpatient unit, outpatient mental health clinic). At that time the requirements in UK were M.A. level and I thought I would have to complete work experience in learning disabilities (which I did not have) and possibly further work experience with children.

"The BPS's overseas committee at that time demanded two years supervised experience in adult mental health - on appeal they reduced this to one year, learning disabilities, written exams, and a further thesis as my M.A. thesis did not use clinical subjects.

"At that time I was offered a stipend of around £6000 a year if I wished to complete this work. I could not live on this so, even though I had actually already been employed as a clinical psychologist on a community mental health team for six months already, reluctantly had to leave and try and find work in the private sector.

"I was deeply disappointed and angry with how I was treated by the BPS. There are many of us out there. I believe that the NHS has lost out because I have not been able to offer my services to them."

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The BPS remains unaccountable

Comment from: Martin Seager, consultant psychologist /head of service, North East London Mental Health Trust
Date: November 24, 2004

" I wrote the 2 original articles against which the BPS are 'hitting back'.

"I have had unanimous support for all of my criticisms except (perhaps not surprisingly!) from the BPS itself.

"I have had about 50 responses to my articles so far and several of these were from senior people in the profession with no grievance against the BPS.

"The BPS offered me a meeting (on the one day of the week I said I couldn't make!) to discuss SoE with them. I agreed to go on that day anyway. I sent them an agenda for discussion a week in advance and they cancelled the meeting the night before saying that they had not had enough time to consider the issues raised!

"They have read my articles and have had years to address the issues that I am raising. They have offered no further meeting. Need I say more? This speaks for itself. An unaccountable organisation that retreats from attempts to make it accountable."

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