The College of Healing is a member of UK Healers and is bound by their rules and conditions. UK Healers is established to be the voluntary self-regulation body for Spiritual Healer practitioners in the United Kingdom. It regulates healers by administering standards and a practitioner register of members of accredited Membership Organisations.
Introduction
The minimum standards set out in this Code of Conduct identify appropriate behaviour for healers and are intended to protect the public when they are given healing.
For the purpose of this Code of Conduct, healing has a specific definition involving the channelling of healing energy through the hands and/or with thought. It does not include massage, manipulation, the use of instruments, drugs or other remedies, or the practice of clairvoyance or psychic surgery. It does include Distant or Absent Healing.
All healers are expected to behave appropriately, take responsibility for their own actions and uphold public confidence in healing.
An established set of procedures will be used whenever a complaint about a healer needs to be investigated, followed by the possibility of disciplinary action if this Code of Conduct has been breached. A healer who is the subject of a complaint must cooperate with the investigating body when called upon to do so, and comply with the procedures and timescales required.
Healers must –
Always:
- Seek to improve their own knowledge and abilities.
- Be respectful and courteous to others.
- Take responsibility for the relationship they have with their patients and ensure that the trust placed in them is upheld.
- Recognise their own limitations and seek help from those with greater skills and experience where required.
- Maintain suitable working conditions where they give healing and ensure that these are safe and meet local authority regulations where required.
- Have insurance protection to the level required by UK Healers.
- Produce details of their membership identification and qualification when asked by a patient.
- Ascertain, whenever necessary, that patients have sought medical advice and advise, where appropriate, that they do so.
- Be ready to co-operate with the medical profession.
- Understand and act within the law as it relates to healing (for example, confidentiality; access to patients’ records and data protection; consent to treatment; child protection; sexually transmitted diseases; infectious diseases; dentistry; midwifery; the sale of remedies, herbs, medicines, supplements, oils etc; and the treatment of animals).
Never:
- Use titles or descriptions for themselves or their treatment that may mislead the public.
- Give or offer any other form of treatment or therapy in association with healing unless they are qualified and insured to do so and without first making it clear to the patient and obtaining the patient’s specific consent.
- Give healing while medically or psychologically unfit to do so.
- Give healing as a trainee healer without being accompanied by a qualified healer unless specifically authorised to do so by their Supervisor/ Trainer and the patient agrees to receive healing from a healer under training.
- Falsify documents or patient’s notes.
- Abuse or exploit a patient sexually, emotionally or in any other way whatsoever.
- Give healing when it is not safe or appropriate for the patient or the healer.
- Discriminate on the grounds of gender, race, religion, political persuasion, sexual preference, age or disability
Before giving healing, healers must –
Always:
- Explain to a patient on a first visit how they give healing, how it is generally experienced, and what the patient may expect with regard to consultations and fees.
- Make it clear to a patient with which UK Healers healing organisation(s) they are registered.
- Ensure, when asked to give healing to an animal, that the treatment given is not construed to be “veterinary surgery” i.e. diagnosis, giving advice based upon diagnosis, or medical or surgical treatment. Where there is concern about the animal’s health, the owner is to be advised to consult a veterinary surgeon.
Never: Guarantee, promise, claim or imply a cure.
While giving healing, healers must –
Always:
- Behave with decorum and propriety, establish and then respect the patient’s wishes and common decency as to where and how they may or may not be touched.
- Respect the views and beliefs of the patient.
- Act in an appropriate manner when attending a patient in hospital or a hospice (for example, obtaining the necessary permission, respecting the responsibility of the hospital or hospice for the patients in their care, carrying identification, giving healing without fuss or interruption to ward staff and other patients, and not wearing clothing which gives the impression of being hospital staff).
- Have an additional adult present when giving healing to a child under 16.
Never:
- Give healing to patients without their specific consent.
- Ask a patient to remove any clothing other than spectacles, coat, shoes or other incidental items.
- Give a diagnosis to a patient.
- Advise or recommend that a patient undergo a particular form of treatment (e.g. an operation or course of drugs) or interfere with the medical advice or treatment which the patient is receiving.
- Have a third party present (e.g. a trainee healer or member of the patient’s family) without the patient’s and the healer’s specific consent.
After giving healing, healers must –
Always:
- Keep clear notes of healing given to patients.
- Ensure that patient notes are kept in a safe place and retained for a minimum of seven years.
- Keep confidential any information received from a patient unless required by law or it is contrary to public interest (for example, there is a risk that patients may cause harm to themselves, or to others, or have harm caused to them).
Never:
- Charge a fee for giving healing to patients with venereal disease, as it is illegal to make a charge in these circumstances.
