President’s Blog

At this last meeting we discussed several items. We spoke about our concerns about the length of time the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) are taking with Fitness to Practice reviews – subsequently they have released a statement about how they plan to tackle this, before we even had time to contact them. It is reassuring to know they had recognised the stress this has been causing some colleagues and the potential impact of cases not being assessed in a timely fashion.

We also discussed everyone’s thoughts on the consultation – that has just closed – by NCHA (The Association for Primary Care Audiology Providers) on their proposed quality framework, Quality in Primary Care Audiology (QiPCA). At the end of the meeting, we were able to discuss this with Harjit Sandhu, CEO of NCHA, and following this we put together a joint statement to submit for the consultation. You can find the statement here [JALG response to NCHA].

Whilst the JALG was set up to begin joint working during the ongoing discussions about the formation of a College of Audiology and separate meetings are held about this, we did discuss the next steps for us all. We have taken advice from an independent management consultancy (Price Waterhouse Coopers) to understand how we can put out an independently assessed member consultation to all members of BAA/BSA/BSHAA/AIHHP.

BAA have previously sent out a survey to our members on two occasions (on both occasions the majority vote was to form a college) but not all professional bodies have. We wanted the same survey to go out to everyone, with more information for the case for change than we may have included previously. Whilst this may feel like unnecessary repetition for us, we have had significant changes in membership since the last time, and we would like to ensure that all professional bodies move forward in the exact same way from now on. Up to now there has been no costs incurred by any of the professional bodies, apart from the time for people to meet.

This will change should we formally begin to create a college, and we all need to ensure that money spent is in the best interest of our members. It is only once we have ensured that everyone’s members agree, that we can then take the next steps towards forming a college and begin to involve other stakeholders. Should the answer be yes, we are preparing to actually get on with it!

And finally…don’t forget that registration for BAA Conference 2026 is live. A fantastic two days have been arranged for you. Make sure you benefit from your member discount and early bird pricing to really get value for money for the two days. Have a look at what we have planned here: www.baaudiology.org/conference

I hope to see a lot of you in Liverpool in October, for my last conference as President.