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Hi all,
How do others in the UK feel about unification of the profession?

Not only (the rather obvious) unification of the grandparented with those who were previously SRCh, but unification of the following groups:
Podiatry students, new graduates, grandparented, former SRCh who are not graduates, podiatric surgeons, NHS podiatrists, private practitioners, foot health practitioners and their NHS equivilents - footcare assistants.

After 2005 the HPC has designated that podiatrists will be podiatrists and foot health practitioners/footcare assistants will not, and I agree this should be the case. But would it be a good thing if all were brought together (different titles and all) under one autonomous body ?

I can see one huge potential benefit from this - strength of the profession.
Currently self interest would seem to motivate our different professional bodies to go their own (fairly diverse) ways, which does the profession as a whole no good at all .
Regards,
David

And which people or bodies may have a vested interest in ensuring we are not easily able to form one cohesive, autonomous UK podiatry body ?
Cheers,
David

Hi David!

Do you mean like a new professional body? As opposed to a new regulator?

I think a unified professional body would be excellent.

Vested interests? Hmm...

Those that profit financially from influencing the existing professional bodies.
And sadly exSRCh's who are still grumpy about grandparenting.

Trouble is that unless everyone signed up to a new professional body it would just be another body to add to the list of SCPOD,BChA(SMAE),Institute etc, etc...

After all you can be a chartered Physio, but also you can be a LCSP and a SMAE one to name but two more..

Cheers,

Robin.

Hi Robin,
A new professional body is not needed and won't work, for the reason you mentioned (ie it will only be in addition to the professional bodies in existence currently).

What I'm talking about is a new regulatory body :) . Picture the HPC as a stepping-stone whose job it is to bring together grandparented and former SRCh together - that will have been done by July 2005. What will be needed then is a new regulatory body which will carry on the work of the HPC, but also choose the direction in which we want podiatry to move. This of course is not in the remit of the HPC (although it or the DOH may well have some self-interest in us as a profession moving one way or another ).

A unified regulatory body will, by definition, be far stronger than the factionalism we have experienced over the last 30 years or so.

Who profits from keeping us as factions within the UK?
Professional bodies obviously, otherwise they would have come together long ago (if you're looking for a vested interest, work out what a few thousand yearly membership fees add up to).
One professional body in the UK ( I suspect) promulgates a "holier-than-thou"
attitude at least partly to show how superior they are (and hence good value for money).
I think you also need to look no further than where your (obviously not yours personally!) attitudes are moulded towards the former SRCh, and where their attitudes are moulded towards SMAE-trained, grandparented or not. We all start off as a blank canvass and the mud-slinging has to be fostered somewhere before finally erupting (usually on thatfootsite !).
Regards,
David