Counselling and Psychiatry: Regulation
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the regulation of counselling and psychotherapy, including legal protections for the titles 'counsellor' and 'psychotherapist'.
Answered by Karin Smyth
The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA) operates a voluntary registers programme, which provides a proportionate means of assurance for unregulated professions, that sits between employer controls and statutory regulation by setting standards for organisations holding voluntary registers for unregulated health and social care occupations, such as counselling and psychotherapy. There are currently 10 organisations linked to the counselling profession and eight organisations linked to the psychotherapy profession, that hold an accredited register on the PSA’s website.
Titles can only be protected for statutorily regulated professions. The titles of 'counsellor' and 'psychotherapist' are not currently protected in law in the United Kingdom. The Department keeps the professions subject to regulation under review but has no current plans to extend statutory regulation to the counsellor and psychotherapist professions.
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