Why Soft Tissue Therapy cannot get Statutory Regulation
Statutory Regulation for a profession can only be achieved through an Act of Parliament. This is a very major undertaking which takes years of public consultation and is very expensive. Because of this, the Government has made it clear that they will only consider it for professions that are at risk of causing significant harm to people. But all the techniques that make up Soft Tissue Therapy are inherently very safe so this alone will prevent us getting it. But there is more.
Soft Tissue Therapy is a newly emerging therapy with ISRM representing only about 1,500 therapists, mostly in the South of England. With a UK population of around 65 million we are far too small to be considered. If we had at least 10,000 therapists across the whole of the UK this could be different.
The cost of administering a Statutory Regulated profession is very high and if divided by just 1,500 therapists we would each have to pay well over £1,000 a year to be registered.
Nobody has wanted to see us get Statutory Regulation for longer than I have but the reality we have to accept is that it just won’t happen in the foreseeable future.