The FHT is an independent, not for profit professional association that exists to represent the interests of professional therapists. It does not have any links to the new voluntary regulator for complementary and natural healthcare (CNHC) however it recognises the existence of the CNHC as the only government backed regulator with a remit to protect the public from unqualified and incompetent practitioners. The good working relationship with the regulator has been developed to ensure that your interests are paramount and not compromised.

As your professional association the FHT has a responsibility to lobby the regulator on your behalf to ensure that its structure, fees and processes reflect the best interests of practising professional therapists. Since the CNHC's inception the FHT has been successful in lobbying the regulator to reduce its intended registration fee and to simplify its registration process.

Part of this success involved the regulator agreeing to let all professional associations verify a members qualification, insurance and good standing and therefore remove the need for a registration fee to be paid to the CNHC. This service is now carried out at no cost to FHT members who choose to be regulated. The £15 referred to in the email relates only to non-members of professional associations who wish to become regulated and is a fee charged by all participating professional associations to cover the administration of this non-member service.

A condition of being able to provide this free verification service to members is that the professional association must be a member of the professional forum (lead body) for that therapy. To comply with this requirement the FHT is obliged to pay a membership fee to the Reflexology Forum. The FHT, as a not for profit organisation, now feels that the cost of joining the Reflexology Forum is not a good use of its members funds because it has not experienced any member benefit over the past 12 months.

The meeting with the regulator alluded to in the email was to seek the advice regarding the implications of this action in relation to the verification of qualified reflexologists to the CNHC register. The CNHC Registrar advised me that the conduct of the professional forum was to be determined by the profession and was not the responsibility of the regulator.

The FHT continues to inform its members that registration with the regulator is voluntary and it does not affect your right to practise.

Following this advice I drafted a motion to amend the constitution of the Reflexology Forum in an attempt to remove the high costs of its existence and subsequently reduce or remove the need for a joining fee. This motion is in the public domain and has been acknowledged by the chair of the Reflexology Forum. In the event that the Reflexology Forum chooses to ignore the motion the FHT will withdraw from this body in the interests of its members. 

The reference to a multi-disciplined professional forum relates to the consideration being given by the profession, and not the regulator, to the creation of a new collective body concerned with the interests of multi-disciplined educational standards. This will not be a replacement for the single modality professional fora.

I sincerely hope that this places in context the email you may have received, attempting to discredit your professional association and the CNHC, and provides some additional information to help you understand the potential damage these detractors may cause.

Kind regards

John French
Chief Executive