Are You Prepared? The new voluntary self­ regulatory body for the UK aromatherapy profession will be launched on the 1st December 2006 as the 'Aromatherapy Council'.

The profession has been working together since 2003 as the Aromatherapy Consortium in order to establish the structure and policy documents for a regulatory body for the profession. This work has now come to fruition and aromatherapy will finally have its voluntary self-regulatory body in place. The Consortium has received funding from the Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health (www.fihealth.org.uk), as well as from all the participating professional associations to enable it to do its work, and has run a transitional register so that individual aromatherapists could become involved in the future of their profession. This combined effort has made regulation a reality. You can read all the progress that has been made, including all the ratified policy documents and minutes of meetings, at www.aromatherapy-regulation.org.uk.

Why do we need regulation?

The Government issued its response to the House of Lords Report on Complementary Medicine (2000), presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Health in 2001. In that response, the Government encouraged complementary therapy groups to unite 'to form a single body to regulate each profession.' They felt that 'this approach will be in the best interests of patients and the wider public, as well as potentially enhancing the status of individual professions.' As a result, the Aromatherapy Consortium was formed, uniting the majority of the profession for the first time. Aromatherapy is now a mature enough profession to be regulated, and as a result it is now capable of becoming integrated into mainstream healthcare in this country.

Apart from this, regulation is your chance to own your profession. Aromatherapists will be able to decide what is right for the future of the profession rather than having policy dictated to it from outside sources. The new Council will be capable of contributing to the ever-changing CAM debate; for instance, with regard to the provision of Integrated Healthcare and the political control issues emanating from the European Commission. It will safeguard your freedom to practice in the future.

The new Aromatherapy Council will be run by aromatherapists from the register, who will be elected by their peers. In the first year, the professional members have been elected from the professional association's membership lists that have contributed to the work of developing regulation, as no regulatory register yet exists.

These aromatherapists will not be representing their professional association on Council, but will sit as an individual aromatherapist working for the good of the profession. Lay members will also sit on the Council with elected representatives from the profession. Lay member involvement demonstrates impartiality, a commitment to open processes and gives a greater sense of inclusiveness in moving forward with voluntary self-regulation. The Aromatherapy Council adheres to the principle of professionally led regulation in partnership with the public, and this will be achieved by involving lay members on the Council. Lay members are people who may have an interest in aromatherapy, but are not qualified aromatherapists nor do they have any connection with aromatherapy organisations or any related commercial interests.

The primary role of regulation is public safety, but that in itself will lead to more credibility being attributed to the profession. In a Department of Health press release published in 2004 (Ref: 200410086), the then Secretary of State for Health stated 'In order to ensure public protection, the scope of professional self­regulation needs to be widened.' In December 2004, the Department announced that it was giving £900,000 to the Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health to help support their work of facilitating regulation of complementary therapies. In a press release dated 22nd December 2004 (2004/0464) the Health Minister said, 'Thousands of people use complementary healthcare and it's important that patients are confident that these services are provided by qualified and competent practitioners.'

On the NHS careers website (www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/nhs­knowledgebaseldata/7800.html) there is an interesting article called 'The Wider Healthcare Team', which acknowledges aromatherapy as one of the most commonly used therapies. The article states, 'The Government is committed to developing an NHS which is responsive to the needs and wishes of patients and which enables patients to play an active role in managing their health conditions. Complementary therapies are clearly attractive to a number of patients and so could, in principle, feature in a range of services that local NHS organisations provide....' It is our belief that regulation of the profession will give the NHS the confidence to use registered aromatherapists. On 1st December 2006, the new Council will launch its regulatory register as a single-source register for aromatherapy in the UK.

What are the criteria for registration?

The Aromatherapy Council will need to be assured that you are working at least to the benchmark as agreed by the profession and the government, which is the National Occupational Standards (NOS - published in 1998 and revised in 2002 and 2006), as well as the new Core Curriculum (published and agreed March 2005 and available on the website). For those of you who are already a member of a professional association that measures its full membership to at least these standards and complies with our CPD Policy, you will be able to complete a condensed application form. You will be able to register immediately and be available for public referral. For those whose qualifications may have originally been below the required standards, or if your association's criteria for full membership is not the NOS and does not have a CPD policy, you will need to complete the full application form and then you will be referred to one of our approved national centres to have your portfolio of evidence assessed. There will be a charge from the centre for this service and they will be trained to help you to either confirm your competence and currency (i.e. by looking at the training and work you have done since qualifying), or by identifying where the gaps in your experience are and help you to do the necessary upgrades. You will be placed onto a provisional register that is not available for public referral whilst you are assessed, and will have three years in order to upgrade. The public can be assured of the aromatherapists on this register as you will also need insurance to practice, and you will sign up to the new Council's Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct as well as the Disciplinary/Complaints Procedures and CPD (Continuing Professional Development) requirements. All of these documents can be viewed on the Consortium's website, on the 'News/Registrants' page. You will not have to be a member of a professional association to be on this new register, but we highly recommend that you be, for the reasons shown below.

What makes this different from other registers?

As previously mentioned, the regulatory register will exist primarily to protect the British public from aromatherapists who are not competent to practice at the agreed national criterion. The existence of the single regulatory register will also give credibility to the profession and, through being regulated, will give other healthcare professions the confidence to refer patients/clients. It is hoped that the establishment of the single register for aromatherapists will allow the Aromatherapy Council to further explore joint initiatives with other healthcare practitioners that are statutory-regulated. The Foundation for Integrated Health will launch its Integrated Healthcare Associates (IHA) network later this year, which will bring together GPs, nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, osteopaths and chiropractors to discuss the integrated healthcare agenda. Integrated Health Associates is endorsed by the NHS Alliance, representing Primary Care Trusts, GP practices and over 3,000 primary care clinicians. It is hoped that once this network is firmly established that voluntary regulators such as the Aromatherapy Council will also be able to contribute to the discussions around integrated healthcare. The Aromatherapy Profession views this as a positive step forward. The Smallwood Report has certainly helped, and if you have not read this report, commissioned by the Prince of Wales, I recommend you download it at http://www.freshminds.co.uk/aboutus/chr.htm.

Your association, on the other hand, represents your interests as a practitioner and looks after your needs and requirements, whether it be through offering cheaper block insurance schemes, continuing professional development, support in the event of a complaint being made against you, and keeping you up to date with developments within the field of aromatherapy through journals, newsletters, conferences and therapist support groups. They also offer specialised corporate advertising in Yellow Pages, and list you on their membership list, allowing you to use certain letters after your name. You can see similar differences in nursing - their regulatory body is the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), and an example of one of their representing bodies is the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). Aromatherapy has more than one association you can choose to belong to, and that is your personal choice. You can even belong to more than one professional association if you choose, but it is of paramount importance that you are registered with the regulatory body. Although we are developing voluntary self ­regulation of aromatherapy, it will be a disadvantage to you if you are not registered as a professional aromatherapist on the UK regulatory register. A PR campaign will shortly ensue to guide the public and NHS to check to see if their aromatherapist is AC Registered. We will also be lobbying private healthcare companies.

We are currently looking at some way to liaise with other therapy regulatory groups to facilitate multidisciplinary therapists, so that they are not burdened with more than one registration fee, or some form of reduction for subsidiary therapies. The Foundation for Integrated Health has conducted a consultation for development of a federal-style structure for complementary therapies, similar to the Health Professions Council. The Aromatherapy Profession has agreed in principle that it would be willing to consider this concept of a federal approach, but recognises the need to ensure that it has developed its own robust systems of voluntary self-regulation for the profession in the meantime.

The benefits of joining the register.

• As an AC Registered Aromatherapist, you will receive public recognition of your status and be on the single national regulatory register for UK aromatherapists
• You will receive an AC Registration Certificate to display in your treatment room or clinic, and be able to purchase leaflets to use in your clinic to advertise to patients/clients the benefits of using a Registered Aromatherapist.
• You will be entitled to put 'AC Registered' after your name, on your letterheads, cards and in your advertisements, as well as your other initials (denoting the association you belong to). The public and all healthcare professionals will be educated through editorials and advertising to look for AC Registered Aromatherapists.
  
• Your registrant details will be made available on the AC website, which members of the public and other healthcare professionals will be able to check. Only your name, registration number and business telephone numbers will appear.
• You will have the opportunity to buy an AC lapel badge (available from the AC office for £3.00, which includes Postage and Packaging - an excellent quality enamel pin badge with gold writing and AC logo and the wording 'AC Registered Aromatherapist').

How do I apply to be registered?

The new application forms will be ready and you will be able to obtain from the new website (www.aromatherapycouncil.co.uk), or telephone the AC office on 0870 7743477 to ask for a copy to be mailed out to you. The annual registration fee will be £60.00, which equivalent to just 16 pence per day in order to give you the credibility and status you deserve as a professional aromatherapist.

Reproduced with the kind permission of Todays Therapist magazine (Nov 2006).
Our thanks to Todays Therapist for allowing us to share their past articles and also to their contributors.