FHP Practice.

C,

Naturally my interpretation of the term health professional will differ to yours because I have removed my blinkers and I view the application of care provisions more realistically.

Phlebotomists are not a registered profession, they follow a training programme and are assessed by a senior Phlebotomist who will sign them off as competent. If you were to have to attend your GP and he advised you to have a FBC or U and E’s who would you prefer to stab your anti cubital fossa, the very well regulated physician or health care professional formally known as a Phlebotomist.

Forgive me for name dropping but after twenty odd years I do know a number of ‘ologists’ and I was looking for a little more feedback on the subject that I raised.

I have to agree with you, most of my ‘ologist pals would not take kindly to someone doing their job after a five day course. That said, there are many areas of the their practice that is carried out by other healthcare professionals and like Phlebotomists are not registered but they are qualified and competent practitioners and the clinicians recognise that.
I think that it is fair to say that if you removed all the healthcare professionals that are not registered from the NHS or private hospitals, clinics etc services would simply grind to a alt.

Incidentally, the Stonebridge Foot Health Practitioner Diploma is accredited by ASET.
ASET are a leading National Awarding Body, recognised in the U.K by the Department for Education and Skills (DfEs), Learning Skills Council (LSC) and the Qualifications & Curriculum Authority (QCA). The course has been awarded level 4 on the NQF, the highest of any of the FHP courses in the UK. Level 4 being equivalent to a Cert Higher Ed.
http://www.foothealthschool.com/aset.php

Thank You
TT

 

Mistertooth
I too can read the website- however many initials you will have after your name the fact is you will be unreguated and unregistered.

You have not removed your blinkers- you choose to ignore the case against FHPs from registerd Pods on this site. If you want a competition I have 34 years experience in both NHS and private practise. I was a radiographer, a registered profession which has never had a back door entry system, therefore you can understand why I find it hard to tolerate being in another where all hell has broken loose. Unlike you, I chose to do the degree route when I retrained.

"I think that it is fair to say that if you removed all the healthcare professionals that are not registered from the NHS or private hospitals, clinics etc services would simply grind to a alt."

What the hell are you talking about? do explain.

I like your plug for the stonebridge site- is this what it is all about? are you there to promote their course and make it look like intelligent people do the course?

C

 

C,

"I think that it is fair to say that if you removed all the healthcare professionals that are not registered from the NHS or private hospitals, clinics etc services would simply grind to a alt."
I can't really make it any simpler. What I am saying to you is that we are all aware of many healthcare professions that make up the countrys health Service. A large number of these are like FHP's , the so-called unregulated and unregistered. Our health service cannot cope without these professionals. Ke! Thats what I am talking about.
You still havn't said whether you would refuse the Phlebotomist and insist that your registered and regulated GP should take your blood.
I only plugged Stonebridge because of your reference to a '5 day course', which it is certainly not.
Thanks

TT - once 'deluded', possibly intelligent!
The intelligent Delusive

 

Mistertooth
Whats your point about the phlebotomist? although unregistered they are under the remit of the NHS_ so have to comply to standards. I dont believe they work in the private sector. Therefore you cannot compare them to FHPs who only work in the private sector under the remit of NO ONE!

Name the other unregulated health professions in the NHS- isnt that irrelevant if they are a recognised post and work to NHS criteria and only in the NHS?

Stonebridge course is - my mistake - a 5 or 11 day practical course- the rest I know is distance learning- how appropriate is that for a practical hands on subject?

C

 

C,
Dietic Assistant, Theatre Support Worker, Medical Photographer, Diabetic Retinopathy Screener, Ophthalmic Technicians, OT Assistants, Orthotic Practitioner, Prosthetists, Imagery Support Workers, Speech Language Assistants, Dental Technician, Dental Surgery Assistant and Phlebotomist to name a few.
A number of these can and do work independently.

My point is, this exhaustive list of professionals are an essential part of the health service, many complete training programmes not that dissimilar to FHP’s.
Distance learning is appropriate in teaching the theory of such a course, the majority of foot health professionals in this country have been taught this way and I believe SMAE started this in 1919.

I am not comparing my future role with that of yours. I respect your training and I have I high regard for your profession. I simply hope to be a competent FHP.

On that note I will agree to disagree with most.

I have a very intensive course to attend too!

Take Care,

TT

 

Mistertooth or should I say anthony tooth ODP

I agree we must conclude that we will always disagree.
All the jobs you are quoting are jobs that are by and large in the NHS only, and there are no alternative trainings to undermine those posts- their training is the only training, whereas in foot health there is the regulated way and the unregulated way!

You have compared your future role with me all the way through this discussion- you consider that Pods are going to refer to you to do the same job as they would do!

I do not doubt that you would aspire to be a competant foot health professional. Would you retain your HPC registration as an ODP ? You could then of course, call yourself HPC registered and a FHP and you wouldnt actually be telling any untruths.

Thank you for respecting my training, unfortunately I cannot return the compliment.
C

 

Mistertooth,
Before I leave this duscussion, I would like to leave you with a few facts to ponder. (In no partiocular order.)

1. As nobody knows what an FHP exactly does, it is difficult to know what a "competent" one is.
2. As the role and scope of practice of an FHP is not defined either, this will cause problems in clinical practice.
3. We are told that some FHPs are "regulated" but no-one can state in what form that "regulation" takes, except that not is not from an independent body.
4. No SCP Members will work with you or refer/delegate to you and SCP members make up the bulk of practicising Chiropodists.
5. 10% of trainee chiropodists leave during the 1st year of a 3 year course. This is because they do not have the manual dexterity and hand/eye co-ordination to master the practical content. This is after considerably more clinical practice than your proposed "5 or 8" days.
6. No-one can run a completely domiciliary practice at the bottom end of the market for long without being completely de-moralised.
7.No amount of FHP training will prepare you for domicilary work. When I qualified (a long time ago) for my first week in the NHS I shadowed another chiropodist on dom work to obtain experience. After that I contined to come across situations I was not prepared for. (Remember, I was salaried and under no time pressure to complete a certain number of visits in order to earn a living.)
Until you actually do it, you will have no idea how heavy a dom bag containing all that equipment and instruments, can be.
And some observations of my own.
1.In a 50 mile radius of the area in which I work, I know of no Chiropodist who would use an FHP as a locum for their business. Enquiries among my colleagues who live in various parts of the UK ellicits the same response. When there are newly qualified pods out there, some willing to work at a slighly lower rate to get experience, why should any ethical practitioner settle for an unknown quantity?
[2. The last time a phlebotomist took a blood sample from me I had a heamatoma that lasted a week. The same was never true when the GPs performed this procedure.]
Finally, and what surprises me most is the fact that although the Insolvency Helpline www.insolvencyhelpline.co.uk lists 65 reasons for business failure you admit you have no idea why small businesses fail.
I will now retire from this discussion as I am more than a little tired of listening to your self-agrandisement.
Dido

 

Dear All,

Reading this i question the sanity of some of the discussion.

1: DOMS equals backbreaking work in poor and sometimes dangerous environments.
eg Lousy domestic wiring , poor lighting , poor washing facilities eg crappy kitchens bathrooms rtc.:bash:

2: Dangerous pets who love nothing better than preventing entering a home or even worse exiting the home.:deadhorse:

3: dangerous patients and or relatives who would love nothing better than to thump you.:boxing:

4: How much per hour does your business require to function and how much will your client base be prepared to pay. I would suggest in UK now a fee per dom visit be in the region of a minimum of £50.00 excluding transport and time in transport costs.

Just a couple of simple observations based on 22 years NHS and Private Practice.

The pp i work in here in Sydney do very few if any doms, only in extremis for terminal care patients.

We have very good premises which have good disabled access.

I value my spine TOO MUCH to spend a half day let alone a hole day working in a Domiciliary Environment.:craig:

I also know far too many horror stories involving health care workers working in peoples homes too consider a domiciliary practice.

regards David:drinks

 

Dear Dido,
Thanks for your positive reply.
Mind over matter........... If the majority of us resigned on mass from the HPC. Then set up a podiatrists board and lobbied hard using a good legal team, we might get somewhere. I fear there may be to many Chamberlains and not enough Churchills in our profession. I would be grateful to be proved wrong

 

Dido,
You said:
"As nobody knows what an FHP exactly does, it is difficult to know what a "competent" one is".

Much the same as a chiropodist/podiatrist, but without the LA and nail surgery. Some don't do biomech, but I can think of one or two 3-year trained pods who don't either. Actually I can think of several 3-year trained people who are not qualified in LA either....

Now don't go saying you don't know what FHPs do again!

BTW, I can see why this would make some three-year trained people annoyed, but you have to remember that we have one huge advantage over FHPs, and that is that the door to further professional training (by which I mean higher degrees, advanced imaging, injection techniques and bone surgery, as opposed to CPD) is open to you, but firmly closed to them.

Anyway.....

Then you said:
"No SCP Members will work with you or refer/delegate to you and SCP members make up the bulk of practicising Chiropodists".

If I gave up my Practice and HPC registration tomorrow, and decided to become an FHP, doing basic palliative footcare, I know of at least three people who are SCP members who would have no problems working with me.
In addition there must be around 4000 chiropodists/podiatrists in the UK who are not members of the SCP. Remember the SCP only gained a tiny minority of grandparented when it opened the door to them. My information is that a similar number of SCP members decamped to SMAE and the Institute, so the status quo has probably not been changed.

I have no figures from the Alliance, and I know of at least one Alliance person who regularly visist here, perhaps you could comment too?

Regards,

 

Hullo Perrypod,

May I point out the flaw in your otherwise excellent suggestion?

By resigning from the HPC we would not be able to set up a Podiatrist Board, since that is a title protected by law.

It would need to be, err, a FHP Board.

This would cause all manner of problems, least of which SCP members would also need to resign en-masse, and call themselves FHPs.

Between you and I, I don't think it will happen.

igs:

Cheers,

 

david

with your training and experience this would be a different senario to working with an unregeristable practitioner

 

David,
Thank you for your reply to which I repeat that a good legal team will be needed to facilitate this transfer. I submit that if the majority of degree graduate podiatrists wanted legal title to be removed from the HPC and transferred to a podiatrists board, legal remedy could assist. We could then seek a level of legally enforced functional closure hitherto not comprehensively provided. One legal argument would be that of necessity. If the HPC is totally failing the most educated podiatrists, imagine the long term effects on the patients! Only the other day, a patient said to me," If I had known that the person that tried to treat me before hadn't gone to university, then I would not have consented to treatment. I just assumed all the letters after their name indicated that they had." I submit that we are touching on areas such as informed consent and legal rights.

 

Perrypod,

Many Pods have not been to Uni. Degree training only came in in about 1982/3. Before then we did a 3 year Diploma Course. There are a few of us still around!

Back to your podiatrist board idea. It can't happen.

You have to look at the prevailing problems we UK Podiatrists have, not least the fact that some of the more vociferous members of each professional body view some members of the other professional bodies with deep mistrust (myself included).

Read some of the posts in the UK section on the forum to get a flavour

Then there is the division between those who trained via the 3 year Diploma route (but did not bother to upgrade to a degree), and those who have done a three year degree.
As a profession we are absolutely fragmented. This, and not FHPs, the HPC, (or Marigold Therapy) is what makes us weak. While we stay weak we cannot hope (for example) to raise money for a legal team.

Logically, to make the profession strong we should be devoting our efforts towards unifying the profession in the UK. This would necessarily involve every person (not just Pods) who is working in the foot health field. You have already had a flavour of what some people think about that on this thread.

A strong profession, speaking with one voice, could achieve much, perhaps even functional closure.

In a weak profession, as we are currently, any talk of functional closure is just so much hot air.

Regards,

 

David,

How can anyone not want university graduation for our profession. We would obviously allow those who studied full time for their independent diplomas prior to degrees being established to continue to practice under any new system. They inspired us to move the boundaries of professional education forward. I believe it is the Society who should be carrying our suggestions forward and seeking rigourous statutory control. Since HPC, the profession is weaker and there is every indication that, unless drastic measures are taken, matters will worsen and the interests of the public will not be protected.

 

A fair post - in fact, :good:.

May I ask why you think the SCP should be carrying these suggestions forward, and what part, if any, you envisage the other UK Pod professional bodies might play in all of this. You should be aware that the SMAE full-time degree course is, as far as I know, ready to roll out.

The "interests of the public" is an old line - and I know where it comes from. But consider this - we have an increasingly litigious public who can go down the "no win - no fee" route with ease, and at no financial risk to themselves.

I can't speak with absolute certainty for the Inst or the Alliance, but I can state that the SMAE indemnity insurance is much the same as the SCP (we have some additional cover at no extra charge, but the basic insurance is much the same), and yet the SMAE yearly membership fees are cheaper than the SCP.
If SMAE grandparented and FHPs were really that bad wouldn't our premiums be going up rather than down?

Regards,

 

Oh and goodness me David don't we just know it. Its a bit like witnessing a victim of a very messy divorce who just cannot move on and until these people, such as yourself, get over whatever happened and do move on, we have to suffer as a result.

I do not care what professional body you belong to so long as you are happy.

I am so tired of the them and us brigade. What I am interested in is a high quality service delivered safely and effectively within a clinical environment appropriate to the level of care the client requires (not chooses). Can you honestly say that even 50% of Podiatrists/FHPs reach these standards no matter what professional body they belong to or where they work (including the NHS)?

Such widely differing standards fragments this profession - the whole lot of us. Standards from health and safety, education, diagnostics, hygiene, record keeping, assessment...I could go on. Pick which standard you choose and within one locality that standard will vary from diabolical to supreme. If we could all hit one even standard, the profession would begin to grow strong.

This is where we need to start from then we might begin to speak with one voice; then we might be able to unify.

But we can't can we? The HPC dictates standards but only for Chiropodists and Podiatrists. Even then the registrants don't always choose to comply and not everyone chooses to be registered. So we have missed the boat yet again and who are we going to blame?

Please let it not be SCP. This is becoming oh soooooo predictable....

GB

 

:good::drinks