I'ma little confused by what people are trying to say here.

The point of professional registration, as I see it, is to provide a peer reviewed accreditation of your qualifications and /or experience to work in the field in which you are/intend to be employed. This then gives your employer/consumer of your services the confidence that you are fully qualified/experienced to practice in that profession.

It also provides the whole industry with professional transparency. You wouldn't invite a non CORGI registered gas engineer to service your central heating boiler because if he gets it wrong, heaven forbid he might even kill you or a precious member of your family. Where do we differ in that?

AS far as I see it, the VRCT, and the HPC in turn are only trying to find suitable common ground upon which to formally regulate the EBME industry with the minimum of disruption to those that currently work therein. All this talk about secret agendas and the like seems to be a diversion from the main issue, professional registration has to happen if we are to develop and evolve as a credible profession.

Merry Christmas and a Successful New Year to you all from the Senior Service!

Richie (VRCT & IPEM registered!)

Yes, I think people already included in the VRCT are aware of that otherwise they wouldn't be so concerned, like I am, about what's going on and the way that the process is evolving. If you read the reams of stuff I've trotted out in support of the VRCT and regulation you will see that.

Actually; I think it's one of the VRCT comittee members themselves who raised the issue of "secret agendas" in response to a concern. I don't think this was a coherent response from an organisation trying to gain/retain support. Incidentally my concern was raised because of what I have read, from a diverse range of sources, in the "public domain".

Read for "ulterior motive" in my initial posting "a further or additional motive". Ulterior does not have to mean "secret agenda" as far as I'm aware.

Have been rummaging around for the last few days looking for info on VRCT etc. Eventually found what I was looking for and here is an abridged version:

"The Voluntary Register of Clinical Technologists (VRCT) is a partnership of three professional bodies, the Association of Renal Technologists, the Institution of Incorporated Engineers and the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine. Each of these professional bodies has their own mechanisms for membership, conduct and discipline. Membership of either of the three partner bodies or any other professional body is not a requirement for VRCT Registrants.

The Voluntary Register of Clinical Technologists (VRCT) was formed to identify to Government and other relevant agencies the need to regulate the profession. In doing so, it has sought to ascertain proper standards of practice and competence for Clinical Technologists. Its aim was to achieve this through the establishment of appropriate educational standards and properly funded training processes which would lead to the eventual regulation of the profession. In doing so, it sought to ensure that members of the profession practiced safely and effectively. Thus protecting the public against the risk of poor practice within the profession."

"The VRCT Assessors’ Panel (the Panel), which manages and oversees the Register, is a committee comprising representatives of each of the constituent professional bodies. The Panel elects from amongst its membership, the Registrar."

"The Panel meets at least twice per year. The partner professional bodies approve its Terms of Reference annually. All members of the Panel must be current, paid-up registrants of the Voluntary Register of Clinical Technologists."

"The Panel actively promotes membership of the Voluntary Register of Clinical Technologists. The Panel also actively promotes the Voluntary Register of Clinical Technologists to Government and Government Departments, and other agencies including the Health Professions Council, other professional bodies, educational establishments, the medical device industry and employers of Clinical Technologists."

"Numbers on and Composition of the Voluntary Register of Clinical Technologists:
The Voluntary Register of Clinical Technologists opened in October 2000. On 27th October 2005 there were 2,283 Registrants covering the following disciplines:

Nuclear Medicine Technologists
Radiotherapy Physics Technologists
Radiation Physics Technologists
Medical Engineering Technologists
Radiation Engineering Technologists
Rehabilitation Engineering Technologists
Renal Technologists

Based on Department of Health statistics , there are 2186 Clinical Technologists in the English NHS workforce. It is the VRCT view that there are approximately 3000 potential registrants . The VRCT claims to represent well over 50% of the eligible workforce. In a ballot of Registrants, held in February 2004, 93% of the returned votes were in favour of the view that the VRCT should seek regulation of practice through the Health Professions Council."

"The VRCT is seeking to protect the title “Clinical Technologist” along with the seven titles (above) that define the areas of practice of Clinical Technologists. Clinical Technologists who wish to use the titles that it has proposed to be protected by the HPC will need to obtain HPC registration."

(Extracts lifted from: ENHANCING PUBLIC PROTECTION: PROPOSALS FOR THE STATUTORY REGULATION OF HEALTHCARE SCIENTISTS

CONTRIBUTION FROM THE VOLUNTARY REGISTER OF CLINICAL TECHNOLOGISTS
14 November 2005)

Hopefully this is of some use.

I don't know if there are many Oasis fans out there but the title of their latest album is "Don't Believe the Truth". My colleagues and I have trawled through the bumpf that the VRCT have written (and hidden within the pages of IPEM's website) and found that there appears to be more than one version of the truth. I would like to know how they get the figure of approx. 3000 registrants. A rough estimate of the number of NHS Biomeds alone is closer to 10K, this does not include the non engineering side of Medical Physics or the many engineers working with medcial equipment in industry.

Can anyone supply details of the members of the VRCT panel and their chosen area of work? Looking at the petition that they (VRCT) sent to the HPC, it would appear that a third of the panel is made up of Renal Techs when in reality only about 3% of Biomeds are involved in Dialysis maintenance. If we are to go down the road of registration with the VRCT then we need to make sure that the panel is a fair representation of the people it serves.

I also find the lack of available information regarding 'Professional Registration' anoying.
It is/was proposed that the 'VRCT' will become statutory in 2006 & will become part of the HPC.
Can you find any mention of this on the HPC website???
The only place 'Medical Physics & Clinical Engineering'is mentioned is via a circuitous path to the Association of Clinical Scientists(ACS)where 'Medical Physics & Clinical Engineering'is classed under the Clinical Scientists modalities.
Nice to see the HPC are aware of whats going on - (coz I havn't the faintest !)

The initial figure for English techs is referenced as being from - Department of Health, Non-Medical Workforce Census (2001).

They (VRCT) state: "Best estimates of the Clinical Technologist workforce in the NHS in other UK countries takes these numbers to around 2700. If the remaining workforce is accounted for in the medical device industry and elsewhere, the number may be in excess of 3000."

Given the DH figure, which should have some semblance of accuracy, where does the figure of 10k come from? I suspect that the true figure (nationally) is somewhere in between.

We alone have almost 40 techs here posted in areas such as ICU, NNU, Renal, Theatres, EBME etc. and this doesn't include technologists in the Med Phys side of our busy MPCE dept.
There are of course other hospitals with alot less. I'm aware we may be out of the ordinary but this shows that estimates on numbers of CT's/ techs cannot be made based on for example a dept of a few techs x no. of NHS trusts.
Just for info, 2 on VRCT with IPEM and 7 on VRC with SCCT.

We would have approx. 20 people, who could apply. But no one has as of yet.
I posted a question once but as usual it went off topic.
The aim was to find out the names that could apply to the VRCT with this information I was planning to create a poll to see percentages of who had and had not applied. Therefore giving answers to some of the things discussed above.
I know not everyone is a member of the forum but I was hoping that most departments would club together and come up with best guess.

If anyone hasn't yet seen a copy of the report originally mentioned by Richard, try this link:-

http://www.medeng.net/Registration%20Report%2017_11_2005.pdf

Nadolig Llawen

Ivor

The 10K mentioned in my previous post was taken from Kevin's report as linked to by Shins. There is another thread on this site asking about the numbers of biomeds etc unfortunately there is not much info there yet.
Earlier on Scott Barlow mentioned that a lot of field engineers are on the VR. This is common amongst Reanl engiineers. This is because they have their own organisation which has been going for over 30 years. I may be repeating myself in a previous posting but as was mentioned earlier in this thread, we really need to form our own organisation to forward our profession. I would like to propse the name "The Organisation of Biomedcial Engineers" but I think that people might not feel that we should carry the title "OBE" although we deserve it.