We are the largest employer of music therapists in the UK

Nordoff and Robbins is the UK’s largest employer of music therapists. We also train musicians to become music therapists through our own Master of Music Therapy programme and invest considerable time and resources into the continuing professional development (CPD) of our therapists.

We broadly support the response of the UK government and the devolved parliaments to the recent review of professional regulation in healthcare. In particular, we support the principle of a more flexible and proportionate approach to regulation in general, and to fitness-to-practice processes in particular. We understand the reasoning for a potential move towards a smaller number of multi-profession regulatory bodies and regard the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a positive model for how this might be achieved.

The government’s response also contains a suggestion that some professions might be removed from statutory regulation, but we would oppose this happening with music therapy. Our reasons are as follows:

• Music therapists work with particularly vulnerable populations, often as part of a multi-disciplinary team. It would be wrong for music therapists to be less accountable than their colleagues from other fields.
• Music therapy can be a powerful experience for people and therefore comes with a risk of harm.
• Deregulation would make it more difficult for potential users of music therapy to understand who is properly trained and complying with the demands of regulation, such as CPD.
• Removal of the HCPC’s Standards of Education and Training and Standards of Proficiency would make it harder for us to benchmark our training programme and demonstrate its quality to service users and potential employers.
• The UK is widely hailed as a world-leader in the field of music therapy precisely because of HCPC regulation.
• Regulation of music therapy in the UK is cost-free to the taxpayer, as all costs are met by fees charged by the HCPC to registrants, so there is no economic argument for its abolition.