Message to the “Guardians of chiropractic” The horse has bolted”

Funny what people keep1
Electoral Reform Services was commissioned by Bankside Law Ltd on behalf of “a pan
association group of chiropractors” to print, distribute and receive back completed
questionnaires for its Survey of The Chiropractic Profession.
The questions were designed by Bankside Law Ltd’s clients.
Bankside Law Ltd’s clients were also the source of the names and addresses to which
questionnaires were to be sent. We were assured by the Managing Director of Bankside Law
Ltd that “my clients have instructed me they were careful to obtain the details of all the
chiropractors from publicly available sources and that they cleared their actions with the
office of The Information Commissioner who is responsible for policing the Data Protection
Act before conducting the survey”.
Questionnaires were sent out by first class post on Friday 5th May. By the (extended) closing
date of Wednesday 24th May, 968 completed questionnaires had been received by ERS. This
is 50.9% of the 1,900 questionnaires which were sent out.
Each questionnaire was uniquely numbered. This was to prevent multiple participation. No
record, however, was kept of which person each numbered questionnaire was sent to.
This report contains the overall response to each question put.SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS
Amongst all respondents:
31.8% stated that they agreed with the statement ‘The actions of the GCC in
disciplining chiropractors has improved the protection of the public’, whilst 52.8%
indicated that they disagreed with this statement;
83.8% stated that they agreed with the statement ‘The GCC has done little to
promote the profession’, whilst 8.0% indicated that they disagreed with this
statement;
8.1% stated that they agreed with the statement ‘The profession has united
together under the GCC’, whilst 83.8% indicated that they disagreed with this
statement;
10.5% stated that they agreed with the statement ‘The diversity of the profession
has been protected and encouraged under the GCC’, whilst 77.5% indicated that
they disagreed with this statement;
77.1% stated that they agreed with the statement ‘The GCC, like the General
Osteopathic Council, should appoint external, impartial educationalists to oversee
the accreditation of the chiropractic colleges’, whilst 10.9% indicated that they
disagreed with this statement;
91.3% stated that they agreed with the statement ‘Professional Conduct Cases
should be heard within six months of the charge being passed to the Professional
Conduct Committee’, whilst 0.9% indicated that they disagreed with this
statement;
72.4% stated that they agreed with the statement ‘The Council of the GCC is
influenced by inter-association politics’, whilst 4.3% indicated that they disagreed
with this statement;
9.9% stated that they agreed with the statement ‘The workings of the GCC are
open and transparent’, whilst 73.9% indicated that they disagreed with this
statement;
7.6% stated that they agreed with the statement ‘The £1,000 GCC registration fee
is a reasonable sum to pay’, whilst 88.3% indicated that they disagreed with this
statement;
22.9% stated that they have confidence in the General Chiropractic Council to
regulate the chiropractic profession, whilst 77.1% stated that they do not.

All sounds very concerning. Trouble is with this profession, only a few people actually have the guts to do anything. I know the executive councils of the prof associations come under a lot of fire on here and elsewhere, but at least they actually stand up and do something! Most people I know wouldn’t dream of writing to the GCC to complain about anything, such is the feeling of fear of repercussions. I’m hoping that on this occasion, the professional associations will do something, although sounds like they don’t have much influence if the Guardians’ letter is to be believed.I feel helpless as I guess hundreds of other chiros do.

Meant to say, I’m glad the McTims have done something, does anyone know what the other prof associations are doing? Surely if they all supported the college of chiropractors bid then they must be feeling pretty miffed?

The MCA has written a strongly worded letter to the Chair of the GCC. Personally, I am appalled at this decision which puts so much power to validate and revalidate the profession in the hands of one educational institution.

Well, I’ve managed to get hold of a copy of the letter as it seems the ‘Guardians’ have sent it round to the associations so it is now in the public domain.

Personally, I am not surprised to read its contents. It has been clear to me for sometime that the revalidation process was being steered towards the nhs model of safety and that is completley disprotortionate to what we do.

neither am I surprised to hear that WIOC has yet another contract from the GCC to run and make money out of us all.

“Dear Richard,

We represent a group of troubled chiropractors, deeply concerned at the way our profession is heading. It has recently come to our attention that the College of Chiropractors has failed in its bid to win the contract for revalidation and the contract has instead been awarded to the Welsh Institute of Chiropractic. You may not be aware of this fact yet. We see this as a complete travesty.

Our information is that all the professional associations strongly supported the College of Chiropractors’ bid and this just seems like yet another case of the GCC ignoring the wishes of the profession and doing exactly what it wants. It is not even clear whether the decision has been made by council; which leaves us wondering who is running the GCC and more to the point, who are the real key decision makers?

The College of Chiropractors is a pan professional organisation and belongs to us and truly represents the profession. The College of Chiropractors was the only real choice and in our opinion, the only organisation that would be accepted by the profession.

It is our hope and belief that the profession will reject this latest imposition by the GCC and refuse to cooperate with the revalidation process until it is in the rightful hands of the College of Chiropractors. It is time for us to make a stand. We will be encouraging all our friends and colleagues not to participate in such a flawed system.

We wait with anticipation to see what, if anything, the professional associations will do to address this latest travesty!

We want the profession to know about this latest development and ask you to post this letter on chiropracticlive.com, but at this time we wish to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions; however expect to hear more from us in the future.

‘Vitally’ yours,

Chiropractic Guardians”

Is this the Guardians in question?

http://www.chirosquad.com/

But Richard, this current blog is like a newspaper and as Editor and chief reporter why not publish and be damned? If these people have given you information hat is likely to be bad news for the profession why not let us see it and make up our own minds? You could put a disclaimer ovr the top stating that the information is unverified.

Stefaan,

Mmm,maybe I didn’t make myself totally clear. I understand that it probably takes a fair amount of money to finance buildings etc. I am not objecting to regulation, I am objecting to the people who are doing the regulating. Knowledge of a totally different health paradigm (chiropractic), honesty, good ethics and the passion and drive to take the profession forward costs about the same as ignorance, dishonesty, poor ethics and the seeming desire to take the profession out. Furthermore, I think chiros would be happier paying their 1K if they were getting an association with the former qualities when, as it is, they have the latter.

Yes I did think you seemed to be attacking those who wish to remain anonymous. Don’t you understand – it’s not that chiros don’t believe in what they stand for – they are fearful of the GCC’s spitefulness and loathing of anyone who dares challenge them. I don’t know if you have a family to support but many do. They fear for their livelihoods and, therefore, the wellbeing of their families. Justifiably so, in my opinion. You surely know as well as I do, the distress that the GCC have caused many good chiros by putting them through spurious complaints – even digging for anything they can find that was nothing to do with the original complaint. Some of these chiros have been put through hell for a long period – I don’t blame anyone for remaining anonymous. It’s not about “this day and age” as you put it – it’s about the attitude of a dictatorship called the GCC and the imbalance of power.

By the way, you say about associates being treated poorly – it happens the other way round too. Associates can and do behave very badly – employed or not.

No, Stefaan, I don’t think you do get it. The GCC are not doing as great a job as we can afford, as you put it. I’m amazed that you think that. Chiropractic deserves better, way better! The problem is that the GCC are coming from the wrong place. They don’t trust chiropractors or chiropractic. How could they? They don’t even understand it.

Having once attended a GCC meeting instead of another committee member, I was shocked to find the meeting resembled something like out of the ‘Spitting Image’show – when they portrayed Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet members pathetically agreeing and fawning over her. The GCC meeting was just like that – “yes Margaret, no Margaret”. It was awful and somewhat surprising to me, considering that I had thought that some of the members had more balls than that. Afterwards, one of the members collared me near the lift and said “Do you see what we have to put up with?”

The ‘iron lady’ ruled the roost while everyone else slobbered and grovelled around her.

There is nothing wrong with regulation but it should be by people who understand chiropractic, support it and want the best for it and out of it – for the consumers sake. They should be people of integrity and sound moral and ethical fibre. I have seen very little of that from where I stand. Furthermore, they should not have on the council, narrow minded people steeped in a totally different paradigm – pharmacists, etc. Their blinkered uneducated view only contributes to the mess.

And your reference to the bunch of soft people – that’s just mean and uncalled for. Let’s stop circling the wagons and shooting inwards, Stefaan.

Come on Richard, please publish the letter. The guardians, whoever they are, should be encouraged to make a stand. I have long thought that like minded chiros need to meet in one place, openly discuss these issues, share their fears and realise that they need to unite as one to go forward. This would have the potential to make more of a difference surely, than sharing views on facebook, blog comments etc.

I think that many chiros don’t even know the half of it. I didn’t until I came across your site and read stuff like Zeno’s blog. I asked a couple of chiros if they’d ever heard of Zeno alias Alan and they hadn’t. They really had no idea that there are people out there with such a venomous hatred of chiropractors that they are willing to spend huge amounts of time and effort going after them. Of course, everyone knows about Singh but little of all the stuff behind it.

Things are, in fact, worse than most chiros know. I’d like to know who the guardians are because I’d like to join them. I would hope that many others would too.

Yes many people are rightfully fearful, the whole process of registration is unnecessarily stressful, the high fees the vote of confidence; however try to see the funny side of it;

A tiny profession, huge egos, lots of associations, fat men in bad suits, it is more like a comedy show. I might write one “How to win friends and influence world opinion against the dangers of law abiding caring professions”

You will recognise me, fat bald bad suit, great sense of humour and I use my own name. It really does say a lot about the quango culture that law abiding people are fearful for their livelihood, the sooner the government does a cost benefit analysis of this type of regulation the better, proportionality and costs seem a dim and distant afterthought.

Caveat

Any resemblance to a slim hairy well groomed chiropractor is unintentional.

Well, Rod, I admire you for using your own name! Bloody brave I can tell you; however, I can understand those that fear repercussions having been at the receiving end of the GCC on more occasions than I care to remember. As one of my colloeagues recently wrote:

“….good to be away from That Awful Woman… the more I look back on those strange years, the whoppers, the nastiness and the little band of useless acolytes, smiling as they stabbed backs… plus the chair, who was more of a whoopee cushion!”

It was ignominious – and while one accepts that governmental officialdom is fraught with ‘politicking’ – the GCC were exceptionally vile.