In 2000, the House of Lords
Science & Technology Committee issued a report assessing the
current status & standards of Complementary Therapies and Alternative
Medicine. The report highlighted issues of public protection & safety;
the establishment & regulation of practitioner standards - code
of conduct, standards of professional training etc - and the evolving
provision of complementary therapy through the NHS.
The Committee recommended that
regulation should be proportionate to the risks involved and listed
each therapy submitted for inclusion into a Group category. It recommended
that unregulated CAM professions develop their own independent,
unified systems of Voluntary Self-Regulation.
What are the benefits of regulation?
Voluntary self-regulation offers
the public increased protection and safety. It provides therapy
membership associations with an elected, representative body to
preserve an holistic approach within their chosen therapy and to
actively participate in the future of how their therapies are developed.
No presentations on sound therapy
were made to the committee, so sound therapy was not considered
for inclusion in the House of Lords' report. Despite the omission,
there is growing public interest and awareness of the therapeutic
effects of sound and more therapists are interested in incorporating
sound therapy in their work.
Working Party forums representing
the 12 Group 2 therapies were established with the help of the Prince
of Wales' Foundation for Integrated Health and discussions for creating
a VSR Council to represent only those therapies are well under way.
The Prince's Foundation for
Integrated Health has become a key player in the consultation process
and their website offers updates that track their progress to date.
The Foundation is essentially
in favor of creating an over-arching Council that would regulate
the 12 therapies but, by its nature, it currently excludes all other
therapies who do not meet their criteria.
Sound Therapy - what
is our future?
It is too soon to contemplate
us being able to join any form of VSR Council until we have formed
at least one represenative association for those of us who are interested
in doing so. We have no idea how many people are working in the
field of sound therapy in this country and so it makes sense to
try to form a working association prior to any attempts towards
VSR.
There appears to be a growing
interest in sound therapy in the UK. More and more, individuals
within our field are contacted for information about training courses
and methods for working with sound. It seems the time could be right
for us to form an organization that can act as a resource and point
of contact for both the public and professional organisations.
