The Society of Homeopaths (SoH) has withdrawn from the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) Accredited Registers (AR) scheme as discussed here. The Problem When the SoH withdrew from the Accreditation scheme it said among other things - Public protection, patient safety and patient choice are paramount and built into all the Society’s processes and governance. Accountability is ensured through a balance of representation by practitioners and independent members on the Board as well as on the Society’s professional standards and education committees. Given the history of the SoH and the var ..read more

The Society of Homeopaths (SoH) recently announced that it has withdrawn for the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) Accredited Register (AR) scheme. This is not unexpected. It taken quite a while though. Slow process As far back as 2018 (and possibly earlier), the SoH board were considering whether AR status was worth it as board minutes reveal. As this blog pointed out last year, withdrawal has increasingly looked the least worst option for the SoH going forward. That is even more true now given recent events such as the PSA suspending the SoH's accreditation (discussed here). It's p ..read more

 Below is my response to the Professional Standards Authority consultation. A future post will discuss the Accredited Registers scheme in more depth. It helps to read this first. Question 1: Do you agree that a system of voluntary registration of health and social care practitioners can be effective in protecting the public? For certain occupations, yes. It really depends on how committed occupations, individual registers and their members are to public protection. If (most) registrants are employed or contracted, the ethos of their employers can have a strong influence on the occupatio ..read more

Something very bad has happened to the Society of Homeopaths (SoH). The Professional Standards Authority (PSA) has suspended their Accredited Register status for twelve months and it is very unlikely it will ever get it back. This has been coming for a while.  Panel Decision The decision may be written in temperate languagee but is hard hitting nonetheless. The PSA suspended the SoH because a Panel judged that they had failed to meet two Conditions with a deadline of 21/10/2020. Those conditions were - Condition One: The Society must ensure that its recruitment processes include ap ..read more

What is going on with the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) and the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) has become a little clearer. Things have moved on since the last blog post. The SoH recently told the PSA that they do want to renew Accredited Register (AR) status. But the SoH has a number of hurdles to overcome before the PSA will consider their application. Conditions The PSA have imposed various Conditions on the SoH. One Condition was imposed by the last Annual Review, three by an in year review in July 2020.  The decision as to whether the SoH have met those Conditions will ..read more

The in-year review of the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) Accreditation by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) has completed. The PSA did not remove Accreditation. Instead it imposed addition Conditions on the SoH. Whilst this may fall short of what some critics of the SoH were hoping for, it does not mean the SoH are out of the woods yet. It would be very difficult for them to meet the Conditions. They may choose to withdraw from the Accredited Registers scheme. Parts There is a news item. It links to a Accreditation Panel report from July 2020. This was not published immediately. Becaus ..read more

The last post mentioned that the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) was attempting to engage with its members. The timining of this engagement was highly suggestive of it having something to do with the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) decision to conduct an in-year review of the SoH's Accreditation. Admittedly, at the time of writing it is about two weeks since the engagement was concluded. The SoH has said nothing publicly yet about the outcome of this engagement. Neither have any of its members. In fact, there seems to have zero publication reaction from any UK homeopaths to Telegraph story ..read more

The last post talked about the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) and media reporting of its problems. It also discussed the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) calling an emergency in-year review of the SoH. It must be stressed that an in-year review only happens if very serious concerns have been raised about an Accredited Register. So far, the SoH have only said things like it would be inappropriate to comment whilst the review is ongoing. But it seems to have reacted. Members' Disccusion sessions The SoH are having three of these over two days, each an hour long. They are being conducted usi ..read more

It was always going to be the case that the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) would find it very difficult to deal with the problem of anti-vaccination sentiment. It's a problem that is endemic to UK homeopathy. The potential impact of anti-vaccination on UK homeopathy has been discussed multiple time on this blog (this article is recommended reading). Things have got much worse for the SoH and its largely of their own making with the Sunday Telegraph's Society of Homeopaths under review amid claims standards chief promoted anti-vaccine propaganda. Some explanation is required as this ha ..read more

The Society of Homeopaths' (SoH) ongoing problems with anti-vaccination make it difficult to continue with Professional Standards Authority (PSA) Accreditation. The SoH seems unwilling and/or incapable of dealing with it. Anti-vaccination beliefs are endemic among homeopaths and long established. Anti-vaccination beliefs among SoH members has caused the PSA to come under pressure from NHS England (NHSE) and others to remove the Accreditation of the SoH. That pressure is not going to go away nor is the media reporting.  The SoH has very reluctantly moved towards a prohibition on its memb ..read more