Standards and Codes
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Standards and Codes
We work to ensure that our standards and codes are applicable to our practitioners and incorporate the highest level of safety and care to patients.
Our guidance is regularly reviewed by our Standards Working Group. Our group is representative of our registrants, education, insurance (both private health and professional) and representation from the public.
Advertising correctly
All practitioners should be clear and transparent in their advertising and work in line with their own competency. Practitioners will never make claims to cure, however they will be clear about their training in evidenced based practice. Practitioners should be clear to state:
- Level of training, i.e. medical or therapist offering adjunctive/short course or acupuncturist with full core training in Traditional AcupunctureÂ
- Area of expertise i.e. Musculo skeletal or Womens’/Men’s Health, Paediatrics, Oncology etc .
Auditing
From within ARA, audits are carried out to verify that practitioners are adhering to the codes of practice. We select a number from within the registrants at random. There are programmes for training and re-auditing where levels are inadequate.
Why Choose ARA?
ARA provides continuation of the House of Lords recommendations on Complementary & Alternative Medicine and is open to all groups to join and provides a central area for acupuncture regulation within the UK.
ARA are the only acupuncture organisation to be supported by the largest health care union, Unison
ARA provides transparency to the public and clear explanations on acupuncture titles, styles and terms
ARA provides transparency of skills and levels of training between practitioners
ARA has an outstanding safety record and our practitioner insurance has had £ZERO claims for the last three years
ARA carries out fully verified audits offering unprecedented public protection higher than anywhere in the industry
ARA meets the five Environmental Health and licensing requirements for professional bodies:
- We have a register of members
- We require a qualification for membership by way of training for, and experience of, the therapy concerned
- We require our members to hold professional indemnity insurance
- Our members abide by a code of conduct and ethics, including a prohibition of immoral conduct in the course of their practice
- We provide procedures for disciplinary proceedings in respect of our members.
Breach of codes
Complaints will be dealt with effectively and dealt with as quickly as the circumstances of the complaint allows. Our aims are to provide sufficient knowledge in a panel to facilitate a complaint to be comprehensively understood and followed through sensitively. Please find our codes of Professional Conduct, Code of Safe Clinical Practice here.Â
If you have a complaint to make about a practitioner, we encourage you to try to resolve with your practitioner initially. Should this not be satisfactory, please complete our complaints form. The procedures that we will follow in the event of a complaint are here.Â
ARA Code of Safe Clinical Practice
Rulings
We make every effort to have complaints heard promptly, sympathetically and fairly. Our processes to hear complaints are listed in our Complaints Procedure. Any member who has been subject to disciplinary procedures and not remedied the situation will be shown on our Check a Practitioner Page.Â
You can check a practitioner by looking at our list of members. Â