Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has plans to review the current regulatory framework for counselling and psychotherapy; and what steps are being taken to help ensure minimum standards of training and accountability within the profession.

The Government is clear that the professions protected in law must be the right ones and that the level of regulatory oversight must be proportionate to the risks to the public.

The Department has no current plans to extend statutory regulation to counsellors and psychotherapists, nor to introduce minimum standards of training and accountability required of individuals providing counselling and psychotherapy services. Any decisions about practice requirements are a matter for employers.

The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care’s voluntary registers programme 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. There are currently 10 organisations that hold an accredited register linked to the counselling and psychotherapy professions on the Professional Standards Authority’s website.