Shiatsu Society

Shiatsu - a World of Human Touch

You are here :Home Page :

Standards & Regulation

Standards

Regulation

The Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health

What is a Federalist Regulatory Structure & how it will affect the Shiatsu Society?

The Regulation Programme

ESF at Work

 

taster2

The Shiatsu Society adheres to very high standards. It follows its Rules & Regulations, Articles of Association and Memorandum of Association.

The standard of training of our practitioners is extremely high with a minimum of 3 years training, minimum of 500 hours and after graduation, assessed by the Society. All of our practitioners are full members, fully insured and adhere to our Code of Conduct and Ethics.

The Society maintains ethical standards banking with the Co-Operative, recycling where possible, printing on recycled paper and does not tolerate any form of abuse, assault etc.

Regulation

What is a Federalist Regulatory Structure and how will it affect the Shiatsu Society?

Statutory Regulation was required by the government for the more invasive complementary therapies, such as Acupuncture, Herbalism, Osteopathy and Chiropracty, as there was more apparent potential hazard in mistreatment. Voluntary Self regulation was advised for the ‘safer’ therapies such as Shiatsu, Bowen, Alexander Technique etc. Following a commissioned report by Professor Julie Stone, a federalist structure of self regulation was suggested as the most useful model. This would involve a number of therapies coming together under the umberella of one regulatory body. This would be both economically sound, and provide better safeguard for the public in the long term.

Coming together under one independent regulatory body would ensure some consistency of high standards in all the therapies with regard to training, qualification, registration, insurance, research, auditing, health and safety, infection control, ethical standards and complaints procedures, and criminal records bureau checks. This would ensure the safety of the public and accountability of the complementary healthcare professions to the public.

A three year Regulation Programme has been set up by the FIH, with £900,000 funding from the DOH, to facilitate the complementary therapies to prepare for voluntary self-regulation and to set up an independent representative regulatory body. The FIH provides training, support and some funding. The therapies that have so far joined the programme are as follows: each has presented itself as a unified forum for regulation:
Alexander Technique Voluntary Self-Regulation Group
Aromatherapy Consortium
Bowen Forum
Cranial Forum
Council of Organisations Registering Homeopaths
General Council for Massage Therapy
Reflexology Forum
Reiki Regulatory Working Group
British Council for Yoga Therapy.

back to top

The Shiatsu Society and the Regulation Programme

The Shiatsu Society has applied to join the Regulation Programme. It hopes that this will help Shiatsu as a therapy to achieve even higher standards of excellence and accountability in practice, and become more readily available through the NHS, have greater opportunity for research and for sharing of information. It is represented as part of the General Shiatsu Council, an organisation established to prepare Shiatsu for regulation.

Under a Federalist Regulator, the Shiatsu Society would still maintain its own training schools and curriculum and would advise the regulator on its own criteria for practice and registration. However, the regulator would oversee the maintenance of standards and be responsible for registering practitioners and maintaining the register, and this would be the preferred register for all the complementary therapies, that GPs would access for referral. Whether the Shiatsu Society would hand over its register to the regulator, or would still maintain its own register alongside that of the regulator, is not yet clear.

Whereas the Shiatsu Society would represent and protect the profession of Shiatsu and its professional standards, the Regulator would represent the public, and the requirements of the public, and have many Lay Members on its Management Committee to present public interests.

ESF (European Shiatsu Federation) At Work

The approach of direct representation is at last beginning to have an effect as Government's across Europe look to regulate CAM stimulated by European Directive 2005/36/CE, committing countries to the regulation of professions in 2007.

   

back to top