Extracts about HCPC from Narey report on Sw education
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HCPC regulates sixteen professions including social work. Its main function is public protection by setting standards for education and training. However, the standards for social workers are criticized as being too general. The 76 standards of proficiency could describe many occupations and few are specific to children's social work. Additionally, the standards of conduct, performance and ethics, and standards of education and training are seen as undemanding and not useful for preparing social workers. The university approval process involves only a brief paper-based review that does not observe teaching or placement quality. As a result, the author questions the value and effectiveness of HCPC in regulating social work.
![[HCPC] regulates sixteen professions, including
physiotherapy, chiropody and occupational therapy. It has
regulated social work – which sits oddly in the HCPC
portfolio - only since the abolition of the General Social Care
Council in 2012. HCPC describes its main function as the
protection of the public; hence it seeks to set standards for
the education and training of the professionals it supervises,
and approves educational programmes which lead to entry
to one of its professions.
HCPC - which, curiously, is independent of Government in
England (the regulators in Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland are not independent of Government) - publishes
Standards of Proficiency. These outline HCPC’s threshold
standards, which, it believes, are necessary for safe and
effective practice as a social worker. The Standards seek to set
out what a social worker in England must know, understand
and be able to do following completion of their social work
degree. In that respect they serve a similar role to the GMC’s
Tomorrow’s Doctors. But, I would argue, they do so with
considerably less success.
HCPC argue that the standards
set out clear expectations of a social worker’s knowledge and
abilities when they start practising. But most of the standards
(76 of them in fifteen groups) are general in nature and could
be describing almost any professional and, in many
instances, non-professional occupation. Very few are
measurable. So, for example, registrant social workers must:
recognise the need to manage their own workload;](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/swreporthcpcextracts-160708175831/85/Extracts-about-HCPC-from-Narey-report-on-Sw-education-1-320.jpg)
Extracts about HCPC from Narey report on Sw education
- 1. [HCPC] regulates sixteen professions, including physiotherapy, chiropody and occupational therapy. It has regulated social work – which sits oddly in the HCPC portfolio - only since the abolition of the General Social Care Council in 2012. HCPC describes its main function as the protection of the public; hence it seeks to set standards for the education and training of the professionals it supervises, and approves educational programmes which lead to entry to one of its professions. HCPC - which, curiously, is independent of Government in England (the regulators in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not independent of Government) - publishes Standards of Proficiency. These outline HCPC’s threshold standards, which, it believes, are necessary for safe and effective practice as a social worker. The Standards seek to set out what a social worker in England must know, understand and be able to do following completion of their social work degree. In that respect they serve a similar role to the GMC’s Tomorrow’s Doctors. But, I would argue, they do so with considerably less success. HCPC argue that the standards set out clear expectations of a social worker’s knowledge and abilities when they start practising. But most of the standards (76 of them in fifteen groups) are general in nature and could be describing almost any professional and, in many instances, non-professional occupation. Very few are measurable. So, for example, registrant social workers must: recognise the need to manage their own workload;
- 2. be able to respond appropriately to unexpected situations; be able to manage competing or conflicting interests; and be able to maintain records. Only a handful of the seventy-six standards have direct relevance to children’s social work. One of the 76 standards refers to the knowledge base required of social workers. So a social worker needs to understand: social work theory; social work models and interventions; the development and application of relevant law and social policy; the development and application of social work and social work values; human growth and development across the lifespan and the impact of key developmental stages and transitions; the impact of injustice, social inequalities, policies and other issues which affect the demand for social work services; the relevance of psychological, environmental, sociological and physiological perspectives to understanding personal and social development and functioning; concepts of participation, advocacy and empowerment; and the relevance of sociological perspectives to understanding societal and structural influences on human behaviour. This is both an incomplete and an inadequate summary of
- 3. the things a children’s social worker needs to know. And in any case, because HCPC insists that the standards are not hierarchical and all are equally important for practice, it is lost in a sea of genericism. The Standards of Proficiency are linked to two other HCPC publications, Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics (another 14 standards) and Standards of Education and Training (another 59 standards). These documents apply to all HCPC professions but were first drafted before social workers became the responsibility of HCPC. The documents are general in nature and undemanding. So, for example in the Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics, the first three ethical standards are: You must act in the best interests of service users. You must respect the confidentiality of service users. You must keep high standards of personal conduct. The Standards of Education and Training outline the standards against which HCPC assesses education and training programmes. But universities are unlikely to be troubled in meeting the standards. For example, in managing admissions the standards require that: The admissions procedures must give both the applicant and the education provider the information they require to make an informed choice about whether to take up or make an offer of a place on a programme;
- 4. The admissions procedures must apply selection and entry criteria, including evidence of a good command of reading, writing and spoken English; The admissions procedures must apply selection and entry criteria, including criminal convictions checks; The admissions procedures must apply selection and entry criteria, including compliance with any health requirements; The admissions procedures must apply selection and entry criteria, including appropriate academic and / or professional entry standards; The admissions procedures must apply selection and entry criteria, including accreditation of prior (experiential) learning and other inclusion mechanisms; The admissions procedures must ensure that the education provider has equality and diversity policies in relation to applicants and students, together with an indication of how these will be implemented and monitored. It is perfectly possible to envisage a university being able to demonstrate compliance with these processes while, at the same time, admitting students who are unlikely to become successful social workers. I believe that neither the Standards of Conduct Performance and Ethics, nor the Standards of Education and Training are of very much use to universities in preparing social workers. Nor can they give Ministers, or the public, confidence about the quality of social work education. And the core document, the Standards of Proficiency, does not remotely provide
- 5. adequate guidance to universities about the skills and professional knowledge required of graduate social workers…. HCPC’s recent report (November 2013) of the first year of its approval visits to universities, records a reduction in the number of approved social work degree courses. But that is entirely due to universities closing courses of their own volition, or because courses previously approved, but which have never recruited students, have had approval withdrawn. In the academic year 2012/13 HCPC inspected 72 Social Work programmes and approved them all. So, since the introduction of the degree in 2003, no course has failed to gain GSCC or HCPC approval and no course has lost approval. HCPC told me that they contract with just twenty-three university inspectors (Visitors as they describe them) on a fee per day basis. They would not allow me to see the list of visitors, so I was unable to establish the veracity of claims that some were distant from practice and relatively junior (although since HCPC pay them just £180 a day I would be surprised if all of them were sufficiently senior or experienced to be credible). The inspection visit lasts just a day and a half. It includes a tour of the teaching facilities but teaching is not observed. It involves a paper review of student placements but placements are not visited. HCPC may point out that, of the courses approved after their inspection visits this year, 86% of them had conditions attached to their approval. But I remain entirely unconvinced that an overwhelmingly paper based exercise and which measures universities against HCPC’s inadequate prescription for social work training, can provide Ministers,
- 6. employers, or potential students with adequate assurance about the quality of individual degree courses. The fact that HCPC has been keen to conduct inspection visits simultaneously with the College (so there are two teams present on the same day but measuring compliance against different documents) betrays an unnecessary duplication. Essentially, we have two weak inspection processes instead of a single robust one. I question the utility, including the value for money, of HCPC involvement either in the registration and regulation of social workers, or in the approval of social work degree courses.