Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council launch

[summer.rain]

Hi rustic,
sorry......no personal attacks from me........... just ranting generally, I would love to know who you are, I like to put a name to those I converse with but understand that there are HPers who like to remain anonymous, have a good day and please keep posting here
regards
BGFL

 

[?Lil.Miss.Odd.Bodd ?]

From the cnhc website:

"Future Hearings

We will provide information here about complaints hearings that have been scheduled to take place."


And they will publish the decisions .....

How is this different from the HPC?


If I join this and anyone makes a complaint about me, even if it is not upheld my professional reputation is damaged. Worse, because I've paid my money to join and agreed with the terms and conditions by doing so, there will be little (nothing?) I can do about it ...

 

[Bled Tattoo]

Hi Rustic,
I cant see in the complaints procedure where it states that the hearings will be made public, so I shall certainly be taking this up with my PA to find out the situation.

As far as im concerned with posting anonymously, fine...I dont have my details on here, my choice, however, there does seem to be, as sportstherapy says, people that come on to further their own ends, by posting spurious accusations about organisations without being able to back it up, then disappear, leaving everyone else either taken in by the lies, or not knowing who to believe.

I say this, I would always trust someone who is prepared to stick to their beliefs, who doesnt shy away from getting involved, and who doesnt run away when being attacked.

Yoshin, you seem to put lots of questions to sportstherapy, and he did put a few back to you, but you dont seem to have answered them. Are you going to let us know who actually runs GRCCT, and maybe enlighten us with some of the points sportstherapy raised?

 

[Jessica <33]

I found it at http://www.cnhc.org.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=5 and by clicking the buttons on the left that say future hearings and decisions of hearings.

I do appreciate that on this website the intention is transparent. The GRCCT website is hard on the eyes, and I couldn't easily find whether they intend doing the same .... perhaps Yoshin could enlighten me?

What I don't like about the GRCCT scheme is that if you can provide the bits of paper to prove you've trained somewhere and done lots of cpd you can still get in, but have to pay an extra £100 for the first therapy and an extra £75 for subsequent therapies. (Is that annual?...) If they turn you down do you get your money back? Perhaps I'll apply with my 1 day PRACTITIONER DIPLOMA in Oriental Holistic Toe Hair Plucking (TM) ( Thanks for the laugh on that one Reiki Pixie ) One of many other things I don't like about it is that I disagree with taking money from practitioners when the organisation seems to be nameless and faceless and the memorandum and articles of association published are a draft dated 7.6.08. They're going to have to wait for my £130 for registration of my diploma in oriental toe hair plucking until their website is a bit clearer

 

[Jig]

GRCCT certainly did not validate my colleagues qualifications at all, so who knows who is registered with them!

I have gone through the CNHC complaints procedure and it does seem to be that if you get to the hearing stage, it is because they have deemed it serious enough to get you to that stage, as it does seem pretty robust and fair, so if you are at a hearing, chances are you will be removed from the register.

Will still raise it with the PA to find out exactly.

 

[amazingirl]

The CNHC complaints procedure is about the process itself, not the website publication of it from what I've read?

Either we are innocent until we admit guilt in advance of a hearing, or are proved guilty at a hearing, (in which case we should not be identified in advance) or we are publicly named and shamed in advance of a hearing, the very scheduling of which apparently convicts us?

If that is the case then the hearing is unethical, nothing more than a kangaroo court, and the therapists are paying for the stick to beat themselves with. I think that in itself brings the professions into disrepute.

 

[Whispers]

Hi rustic,
I will be addressing this point directly with PA for clarification, innocent until proven guilty in my book
regards
BGFL

 

[IM TOO POWERFUL FOR U]

Re: Post #84, Glad Rustic found my joke about the PRACTITIONERS DIPLOMA in Oriental Holistic Toe HairPlucking (tm) funny.

As for CNHC or any other VSR organisation, one thing I have noticed again and again in discussion with therapists, know one gives a damn. Either they don't know what's going on or simply don't care.

Unless there is a stronger united front between the PA's and the CNHC, I can see this going t*ts up. This is why CNHC numbers may be down, therapists simply are not interested.

Best Wishes

RP

 

[snuggameat]

just thought I would update those who replied to this post, I can assure you that the whole disciplinary procedure issue is being addressed and therapists are to be regarded as innnocent until proven guilty.
There are a series of filtering procedures in place where a number of both professional and ley people will discuss each case by means of a preliminary investigation, only those cases deemed serious enough to warrant a full hearing will be published as per the HPC adopted procedures. I am sure that in the near future there will be some positive steps taken to redress the issue which has upset so many HPers.
Regards
BGFL

 

[Aimee Hudson]

Hi

Yes more CAM bashing is about again, and today I received this email below. I checked and David Colquhoun's is connected to the CNHC, yet he doesn't according to his website www.dcscience.net seem to believe in the CAM approach. So why is he working for the CNHC? Anycase you make your own decision about the disinformation and double talk of this email.

Here it is:



Colquhoun and the CNHC


(Complementary and Natural Health Care Council)


What is the CNHC …and why does it exist?


REFLEXOLOGY IS ********!


Nutritional therapy self-styled ‘nutritionists’ making untrue claims about diet in order to sell you unnecessary supplements.


Reiki: tea and sympathy, accompanied by arm-waving.


Shiatsu uh? It seems the teacher is already committed to placebo medicine.


[All the above quotes – and many more – stated by David Colquhoun, CNHC Panel member]


Contents
1: Colquhoun and CNHC
2: More statements from Colquhoun
3: Want some more!!!
4: What to do


1. Colquhoun and CNHC

Colquhoun is a man who has steadfastly attacked, denigrated and taken all steps he can to undermine those involved in natural health. Yet Colquhoun is now (and has been for more than a year) a member of the CNHC’s Conduct and Competence Committee.

The role of CNHC is to regulate the professions of their members. But what is the rational behind allowing an avowed critic of natural medicine onto the Conduct and Competence Committee. Isn’t this like asking racist to be objective about the circumstances of racist crime?

Would you, as a practitioner having to answer to a complaint, be happy to have one of the panel members think your profession is “********” or that everything you practice is fraudulent from the start?

Latest moves from the government now aim at putting all Herbal Practitioners under the authority of CNHC.

Do you want your personal and confidential data, and that of your patient/client in the hands of Colquhoun? What might happen to it?

Certainly every practitioner has to be responsible for their actions and practice but since when has it been standard practice to weigh the scales against you rather than be assessed by a panel of independent peers?

2. More statements by Colquhoun – nonsense, untrue, unnecessary, rectal obsession, mystic barmpot, fraud, theatrical placebo

In his “Patients’ guide to Magic medicine” [http://www.dcscience.net/?page_id=733]
Colquhoun summarizes many of the CNHC members’ professional activities (and other professions too) as follows:

* Reflexology: plain old foot massage, overlaid with utter nonsense about non-existent connections between your feet and your thyroid gland.
* Nutritional therapy: self-styled ‘nutritionists’ making untrue claims about diet in order to sell you unnecessary supplements.
* Spiritual healing: tea and sympathy, accompanied by arm-waving.
* Reiki: ditto.
* Angelic Reiki. The same but with added “Angels, Ascended Masters and Galactic Healers”. Excellent for advanced fantasists.
* Colonic irrigation: a rectal obsession that fails to rid you of toxins which you didn’t have in the first place.
* Anthroposophical medicine: followers of the mystic barmpot, Rudolf Steiner, for whom nothing whatsoever seems to strain credulity
* Alternative diagnosis: kinesiology, iridology, vega test etc, various forms of fraud, designed to sell you cures that don’t work for problems you haven’t got.
* Homeopathy: giving patients medicines that contain no medicine whatsoever.
* Herbal medicine: giving patients an unknown dose of an ill-defined drug, of unknown effectiveness and unknown safety.
* Acupuncture: a rather theatrical placebo, with no real therapeutic benefit in most if not all cases.

So what kind of organisation is CNHC and why have they put him on to their Conduct and Competence panel? Being a CNHC member seems to be like inflicting pain on yourself.

CNHC also received funding from the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health (FIH). Yet Colquhoun regularly lambasts the FIH and Prince Charles himself categorizing him as a “champion of endarkenment” [http://www.dcscience.net/?p=2544] and calling the FIH the “Foundation Fellows of the Prince of Wales Foundation for Magic Medicine, an organisation that is at the forefront of spreading medical misinformation.” [http://www.dcscience.net/?p=2131]

Of course, no one expects that because an organisation provides funding it should be exempt from criticism – but surely, if you are working for an organisation whose purpose is to represent standards in a certain field, why would you have someone on your management team who fires out carping criticism at the supporting organisation, its practitioners and its practices – unless perhaps, it is your purpose to spread discord and cut the funding.

No wonder the CNHC has problems. Their business plan (contingent on funding) was initially to have more than 10,000 enrolled members. This has been revised down to 2,000 and by all counts they have not even made this. Not surprising if the practitioners whom you represent don’t have any trust in the organisation that is supposed to represent the standards of your profession.

3. Want some more!!! – fantasists, wrong and dangerous, largely quackery, lies, mumbo-jumbo, made-up fantasies, placebo medicine

On nutritional therapy
It is interesting to compare the high standards of the Nutrition Society with the quite different standards of BANT (the British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy). They bill themselves as the “Professional Body for Nutritional Therapists”. Nutritional therapists are those fantasists who believe you can cure any ill by buying some supplement pills. [http://www.dcscience.net/?p=1391]

[On quotes taken from Nutritional Therapy text] That must be about as close as you can get to claiming you can prevent cancer by taking vitamin pills. It is wrong and it is dangerous,
Sigh. What century are we living in? [http://www.dcscience.net/?p=555]
Everyone is for good nutrition of course, but ‘nutritional medicine’, or ‘nutritional therapy’ pretends to be able to cure all sorts of diseases by changes in diet or by buying expensive nutritional supplement pills. It has no perceptible relationship to the very important subjects of ‘nutrition’ or ‘dietetics’. Nutritional therapy is very firmly part of alternative medicine, in other words it is largely quackery. If you don’t believe that, read on. http://www.dcscience.net/?p=260

On Reflexology
As usual, not many seemed to care very much about the secondary consequences of employing a ‘reflexologist’, namely that some poor kid has to memorise a bunch of lies to get the piece of paper demanded by HR (and the taxpayer has to fund it). http://www.dcscience.net/?page_id=237

What is the evidence about ’spiritual healing’ ? Very little it seems.
No doubt, mumbo-jumbo can make some people feel better, and to that extent it is justified. But it can and should done be honestly (for example, foot massage is fine, ‘reflexology’ isn’t). Lies to patients should be minimised and universities should not be tempted to hand out certificates in mumbo jumbo. http://www.dcscience.net/?p=34

Michael McIntyre has the first of several long speeches, advocating more research. There was an advertisement for his web site "promotes best practice" (allegedly). He talks quite seriously about "reflexology" and so on, as though it were real subject (it isn’t; its "principles" are made-up fantasies). http://www.dcscience.net/?p=2813

Much of what they do at the Christie is straightforward massage, but they also promote the nonsensical principles of “reflexology” and acupuncture. http://www.dcscience.net/?p=1466

The hilarious Radio 4 programme, The News Quiz had a good joke. Jeremy Hardy was asked “which patients are hoping for a more robust constitution?”. This referred to the £1m PR exercise mounted by the NHS to launch the NHS constitution. Hardy said that in the week when Barack Obama was inaugurated, and “the word constitution have a whole different sort of gravita in a week like that.”
“I think the constitution should open with the words ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident REFLEXOLOGY IS ********” http://www.dcscience.net/?page_id=237

On Shiatsu
Shiatsu uh? It seems the teacher is already committed to placebo medicine. http://www.dcscience.net/?p=454

4. What to do

Why join an association that condones the above? Many have never joined CNHC because of this and other issues whilst existing CNHC members do not want to remain members.

1. Contact your professional association and insist that they do not join CNHC.

2. If your association is already a member then make a complaint and insist that your personal details are not supplied to CNHC.

3. There are other associations in existence that have the same purpose as CNHC. Find out about them. You (or your professional association) have the option to join them and be represented by/answerable to them. CNHC is not the only option and one should wonder why they were chosen in the first place.

4. Please pass on this information to anyone else that you know. It is important that we are represented honestly and with integrity. The actions of CNHC do not add up.

 

[EviL Liberal]

Hi RP

I find this more than a little disturbing, How come someone of his opinions is involved with CNHC, which as I understand it was set up as an umbrella professional organisation for CAM???? Thank goodness I didn't join!

 

[Kristina_UK_1999]

The David Colquhoun who wrote such things does appear to be the same one who is on the Conduct and Competence Committee at CNHC.

Tbh RP, whoever is bandying this information around does appear to have a valid point this time rather than just "bashing" CNHC.

In fact, you might want to look at this thread on HP http://www.massageplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?p=226161

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I received the same email yesterday, sent from someone called Sara McGlouglan - it came into my personal email address. I have no idea who this person (Sara) is. Her email address contains the heading 'alertcnhc@etc' What is going on?
I have no intention of joining the CNHC, for various reasons, but this form of diatribe can hardly be adding to their credibility.

 

[pureinsomniac]

This is a weird email as it obviously attacks the CNHC and Colquhoun, but at the same time doesn't indicate whether the sender or organisation behind the email is CAM positive or negative? It's good that it highlights these strange bedfellows of CNHC and Colquhoun, but is this a concerned emailer or another attack on CAM using divide and rule tactics?

RP

 

[misa]

RP

If the emailer was anti CAM, I'm just wondering if they would have been better off keeping quiet and letting it all happen ..... ??

As I understand the CNHC is mirroring the HPC ......When the HPC gets a complaint from a member of the public, if they don't want to investigate it, they decide a complaint hasn't been made and it disappears. If its not a complaint it doesn't need to get logged, and bypasses the investigating committees anyway. They refuse to accept any complaint from a member of the public that doesn't involve the actual treatment. So registrants can be as racist and bigoted as they like, can commit acts of professional terrorism, bring their profession into disrepute etc etc etc provided they haven't got a conviction or accepted a caution. I've seen the correspondence a friend obtained under FOIA - the HPC is at worst a complete scam, and at best an ineffectual bag of wind, either way being paid for by the registrants.

So if the HPC model is anything to go by, even without Mr C's "contribution" to the CNHC, the CNHC is in big trouble anyway.


Rustic

 

[Ent for Rent]

Interesting Rustic you bring up about the HPC. I know several HPC registrants that basically say the same thing.

As for the emailer, they may be so anti-CAM that they wish the CNHC to go, or it may be one of the other competing national registers sticking the knife in. Whatever is going on, this is not in the benefit of CAM, the powers-that-be rule by fragmenting and compartmentising many aspects of life (is that a NWO conspiracy theory, where's Venetian?), which makes it harder to have a strong united front.

Best Wishes

RP

 

[Nelly]

Hi RP

I think we are sleepwalking into the same thing with any CAM register that follows the HPC model, so if any other register is behind the email, before long they will be put under the same scrutiny and their model compared to the HPC.

I am so pro CAM that I wish the CNHC to go (and any of their competing national registers). I would also like nothing better than the HPC to shut up shop as well.

If the only people who know a CAM register (CNHC or anyone else) exists are professionals, guess where the complaints are going to come from? If the HPC is anything to go by, it won't be about protecting the public or raising standards, its likely to be professionals sticking the knife into professionals.

For the CNHC or any other register to become known to the public would take massive ongoing investment, which the therapists will be paying for, for clients that mainly don't care if they are registered or not. If the HPC worked, I wouldn't be so worried as I am But I now know of several complementary therapists who have been on the receiving end of an HPC registrant's vendetta, either directly or caught in the crossfire. I'm one of them for speaking out. Because of the FOIA I think a backlash may be about to start.

I'm happy to stay in the registration wilderness. Its safer.

Rustic

 

[thomasverdexx52]

Hi probably same email

http://www.dcscience.net:80/?page_id=733%5d

David Colquhoun and CNHC

David Colquhoun is a man who has steadfastly attacked, denigrated and taken all steps he can to undermine those involved in natural health. Yet Colquhoun is now (and has been for more than a year) a member of the CNHC’s Conduct and Competence Committee.
http://www.cnhc.org.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=65

The role of CNHC is to regulate the professions of their members. But what is the rational behind allowing an avowed critic of natural medicine onto the Conduct and Competence Committee. Isn’t this like asking racist to be objective about the circumstances of racist crime?

 

[ileuzuptigjizceky]

I agree with you Rustic. I see this situation as extremely worrying as there is obviously a vendetta against all complementary medicine and if the very organisation that is supposed to be promoting it has such a viper in its midst - what hope is there?

Poor Dr Sarah Myhill has had a terrible time for treating patients with complementary methods. These accusers are no less than professional terrorists (whether it comes from Big Pharma - such as Colquhoun? - or just those Medics who see us as a threat to their patch because we actually help people to get better). She was the last hope for many people with ME - AND she was getting them better - more than any NHS treatment had to offer. She is a fully trained doctor and GP.

Healistic - I do so agree with your last comment!

 

[katie.carmen]

oht owwwww
!!! already it starts 'my course is better than your course'
'my regulatory body is better than yours'
Perhaps all that is really needs to happen is there is a responable body that is able to give the public the knowledge they need to make an informed choice about therapy/therpaist pros/cons of each and an effective way to highlight inefficent/problematic therapists and removes/discontinues those who are inept??
This wouldn't be a bad idea for the medical/nursing profession in fact anyone/buisness/company that provides a service to 'the public'
off me soapbox now x