Division of Clinical Psychology: Workforce and Training Update

NHS England abolition

On 13 March 2025, the Prime Minister announced that NHSE would be abolished, and the Department of Health and Social Care would take on the NHSE functions that were still essential to the running and delivery of the NHS and social care. 

It is envisaged that this change will be complete within two years, and that this will place the NHS at the heart of Government and produce very significant savings that would be fed back into services. 

In addition, Integrated Care Boards would be required to reduce running costs by 50 per cent. Staff in those organisations are likely to feel quite vulnerable and we wish that their wellbeing is considered carefully during this organisational change. 

A new structure has yet to be announced but we will be lobbying to ensure that the Psychological Professions Workforce has a place within the newly emerging Department and is able to offer the support and advice about the shaping and implementation of policy so essential to the delivery of effective services.

New Chief Psychological Professions Officer for Northern Ireland

After significant efforts by the psychological professions in Northern Ireland and the support of the DCP and BPS, a new part time Chief Psychological Professions Officer post has been established in Northern Ireland.

This means that for the first time, Northern Ireland will have an appointment at the heart of the Department of Health. We are pleased to confirm that Dr Nichola Rooney has been appointed and is now in the role.

NHS England: New Guidance: Staying Safe from Suicide

NHS England has published new guidance on the assessment and management of suicide risk. The guidance development was triggered by a tragic incident where a common but unvalidated risk assessment scale was used, which proved ineffective in keeping the person safe from suicide. 

It is really important to adopt, and encourage the adoption of, the new guidance if we are to improve safe practice. The guidance is available here.

NHSE benchmarking survey for the psychological professions 2024

The 2024 collection of data information about the psychological professions in England was completed in 2024. On the 8 May 2025, in partnership with NHS Benchmarking Network, NHS England published a new workforce census of the psychological professions across England as of 31 March 2024.

This is an extremely important survey as it provides the most comprehensive picture of the psychological professions working in the NHS. We are pleased to report that Trust completion rates were higher than in the 2023 survey.

NHS Talking Therapies for anxiety and depression and children and young peoples’ mental health national workforce censuses

Two other workforce censuses have been released which create a richer picture of the current state of the mental health services in England. These can be found at:

NHS England – Mental health national workforce census

NHS England – Psychological professions national workforce census

We would be very interested to hear members views about this information.

Approved Clinician Preparation Training: Briefing

There are currently three post-graduate certificate programmes running at:

1. Northumbria University (John Taylor)
2. Exeter University (Ian Hogbin)
3. University of East Anglia (UEA) (Peter Beazley)

There was a CPD course at University College London, but the university decided that it didn’t wish to develop a PG Cert programme in line with the new national curriculum.

The programmes follow a national curriculum developed in 2023 that prepares candidates to apply for approval as approved clinicians (who can act as responsible clinicians for designated patients) under the England & Wales Mental Health Act 1983.

Contracts with HEI providers were issued in February 2025 by NHS-E Workforce, Education and Training. Contract periods are for 24 months, with the option to extend for a further two periods of 12 months each, subject to annual review and available budget.

All programmes last 12 months and are open to applicants from the eligible professions, that is, registered practitioner psychologists, mental health and learning disability nurses, medical practitioners, social workers, and occupational therapists. Recently, training cohorts have been made up of increasing numbers of registered nurses. 

Candidates following the training are required to submit a portfolio of evidence of competence to one of the four Regional Assessment Panels (i.e. North of England, Midlands & East of England, London or Southeast & Southwest England). Wales has a separate approvals process.

In mid-2024 there was a national tender for programmes and the above three programmes were successful with their bids. Places on these programmes are commissioned by regional NHS-E Workforce, Education and Training leads, and allocation of fees is aligned with the Regional Approvals Panel footprints; with Northumbria covering the North of England, UEA the Midlands & East of England, Exeter covering both the London and the Southeast and Southwest panel areas.

NHS-E commissions a minimum of 20 places per annum for each of the regional panel areas; with the universities receiving the course fees and the Trusts receiving Band 8d backfill for two days a week for the duration of the programme for each trainee.

A video looking at the issues involved in establishing and maintaining the AC/RC roles in Trusts has been developed by John Taylor, Esther Cohen-Tovée and Tony Lavender.

Briefing provided by Professors John Taylor and Tony Lavender.

Review of BPS’s Accreditation Criteria for Clinical Psychology Programmes

The major review of the Accreditation Criteria, followed by extensive consultation, has now been completed and the updated standards are currently at the final publication stage. 

The amount of work involved in this review was considerable and many thanks go to CTCP and the leadership for conducting this in such a thoughtful and thorough manner. There will be a two year implementation time frame for courses to fully meet the new criteria.

NHSE Recognised Registers

The NHSE Recognised Registration paper is very close to being ready for the NHS England approval process. This will require the psychological professions in the NHSE taxonomy to be on particular Professional Standards Authority (PSA) approved professional registers (e.g. Clinical Psychologists on the HCPC register). 

This will help the NHS to ensure that the psychological professions’ staff employed by the NHS are appropriately qualified, regularly engage in CPD and that patients have a registering body to whom they can complain if the practitioner fails to meet the approved standards of professional practice. 

The BPS now holds a PSA approved register for a number of the psychological professions in the register, including, psychological wellbeing practitioners (PWPs), education mental health practitioners (EMHPs), children wellbeing practitioner (CWPs), clinical associate psychologists (CAPs in England) and clinical associate applied psychology (CAAPs in Scotland).

HCPC and the BPS HSPC Working Group

Tony Lavender (working group chair) and Zosia Walecka and Stacey Chantrell (BPS staff) have continued to meet with the HCPC and the Professional Standards Authority (PSA, the regulator of the regulators) throughout the year.

We have again provided induction sessions to HCPC staff to familiarise with the training and working contexts of Clinical Psychologists. We are currently organising a second Fitness to Practice webinar for practitioner psychologists in conjunction with HCPC, the PSA and Unite.

We are organising our response to the HCPC consultation about the Standards of Education and training. These are the standards that are used to judge whether courses should be approved by the HCPC. This approval process allows those trainees successfully completing the programme to register with the HCPC.

We continue to lobby HCPC to improve their Fitness to Practice processes and to raise concerns of members. If there are particular issues you wish to raise please get in touch.

Finally, HCPC has launched a free service to support registrants going through Fitness to Practice.